A court in Castellón has granted provisional release to the 19-year-old driver arrested after a crash on the N-340 that left four people dead and six injured. The judge on duty at the Sección de Instrucción número 1 del Tribunal de Instancia de Castellón made the decision a day after the collision, which involved three vehicles and occurred in the early hours of Sunday.
Information from the Tribunal Superior de Justicia de la Comunitat Valenciana, the young man is under investigation in connection with four alleged counts of grossly negligent homicide, five alleged counts of causing injury by gross negligence and an additional road-safety offense. The court ordered him to report regularly and banned him from driving motor vehicles. It also confiscated his passport and prohibited him from leaving Spain. In deciding whether to order pre-trial detention, the judge considered his age and lack of a criminal record, along with his family ties. The judge also found no assessed risk of flight or reoffending. The charges remain allegations while the judicial investigation continues.
The crash took place at about 2:20 a.m. on Sunday at kilometre 981 of the N-340, near the La Magdalena hermitage, in the direction of Castellón. Three vehicles were involved: a taxi and two passenger cars, one of them a BMW driven by the detained 19-year-old. He sustained minor injuries; two of the four people who died were passengers in his car. The Generalitat Valenciana’s Centre d’Informació i Coordinació d’Urgències (CICU) reported that three men and one woman died at the scene and six men were treated for injuries. Three suffered multiple trauma. The others had contusions or other injuries.
Four injured people were taken to Hospital General Universitari de Castelló, where three remained hospitalized: one in intensive care and two in conventional wards. Two others were transferred to Hospital Universitari de la Plana in Vila-real, and one was subsequently discharged. Firefighters from Castellón spent approximately five hours extricating victims from the wreckage. The precise circumstances of the collision remain under judicial investigation.
The judge’s decision to grant provisional release followed the prosecutor’s recommendation after hearing the young man’s testimony. The court found no grounds for pre-trial detention, citing the absence of an assessed risk of flight or evidence destruction, as well as no assessed risk of repeat offenses. Judicial discretion in high-profile cases has sparked debate in Spain, particularly after recent controversies over sentencing and pre-trial measures in other proceedings. For example, the Supreme Court’s suspension of Víctor de Aldama’s sentence in a major corruption case, after his cooperation with authorities, has drawn public attention to the balance between legal safeguards and public safety concerns. The Supreme Court’s handling of the Aldama case is covered in the report on the Supreme Court’s handling of the Aldama case.
The N-340 is a state road along Spain’s Mediterranean corridor and forms part of the national road network. Spain’s road-safety laws impose penalties for reckless driving, particularly when a collision causes deaths or injuries. In recent years, authorities have increased controls on high-risk stretches such as the N-340, which has a history of serious accidents. Further legal action in this case will depend on the findings of traffic investigators and the court.
