A driver who refused a drug test in Benidorm for not informing him in his language is acquitted

The court says that the Local Police did not inform the defendant with all the guarantees, who requested a Ukrainian interpreter and did not sign the minutes in Spanish.

File image of an officer with a device to perform the drug test. / RAFA ARJONES

1. Closed

07 DEC 2025 6:00 AM

A 30-year-old Ukrainian driver has escaped an eight-month prison sentence  for refusing to take a drug test after being acquitted because the Benidorm Local Police did not inform him in his language, according to a sentence recently handed down by the Criminal Court number 2 of Benidorm.

The acquitted driver, defended by the lawyer Bogdam Moiseienko, of the Galiana Abogados law firm, was accused by the Prosecutor’s Office of a crime against road safety for refusing to submit to the tests for the detection of narcotic substances.

In addition to a sentence of eight months in prison, the Public Prosecutor’s Office demanded that he also be punished with the deprivation of the right to drive for a period of two years. However, in the end he was acquitted “in voce” in the same courtroom of the Criminal Court number 2 of Benidorm, where the trial was held on November 19.

According to the facts declared proven in the sentence, on the morning of September 16, 2014, a patrol of the National Police stopped a car driven by the defendant when it was driving along Europa Avenue in Benidorm. The agents, who were in a camouflaged car, detected the smell of a narcotic substance – marijuana – and therefore stopped the car. The presence of a team of Local Police Attestations was then required to perform drug detection tests on the driver and “they did not inform him in his language of the instructions for it, nor of the legal consequences of refusing the test”.

The ruling adds that he was not informed of his rights as an investigated person either, despite the fact that the defendant, of Ukrainian origin, requested an interpreter because he does not speak Spanish and his knowledge of English is “deficient”.

Documents in Spanish

Likewise, the driver on trial did not sign any of the documents that the Local Police “gave him only in Spanish, despite ignoring that language,” the sentence states.

The magistrate of the Criminal Court number 2 of Benidorm points out in the legal grounds of the acquittal that the evidence of the charge is “insufficient” to disprove the presumption of innocence of the driver. In this regard, it points out that the defendant is ignorant of Spanish, barely speaks English and requested the assistance of a Ukrainian interpreter both from the agents who subjected him to the tests and in court.

In addition, he did not sign the minutes because he did not understand their content as they were only in Spanish and the court considers that “the information of rights and instructions to the defendant were not offered with all the guarantees to ensure their understanding and comprehension”.

File image of a drug detector. / RAFA ARJONES

The judge considers that the accused cannot be required to behave “in accordance with incomprehensible requirements, so that not appreciating malice or malicious intent in his acts, but ignorance and ignorance, the incriminating evidence must be concluded insufficient to disprove his presumption of innocence”.

In the report prepared by the Benidorm Local Police, the agents reflected that they interviewed the driver in English because he understood him well and after carrying out a first test that was positive for cannabis they told him that a second saliva sample was going to be taken from him, which was mandatory.