Last Monday, September 2, Manuel García Castellón’s second and final season at the National Court ended due to retirement, where he returned in 2017 after 17 years enjoying the destinations so desired by his colleagues such as Paris and Rome. The judge has barely set foot in the courthouse since July 8, when he complied with the order of the Criminal Chamber to archive the Tsunami case, a tool he used in his last attempt to interfere in Spanish politics from his seat. of his court.
Manuel García Castellón retired at the age of 72, after requesting a two-year extension that the General Council of the Judiciary grants almost automatically. The judge took full advantage of the power granted by an investigating court of the National Court. After four years of investigation, García Castellón thought he could accuse former President of the Generalitat Carles Puigdemont of a crime of terrorism resulting in death.
García Castellón’s farewell was worthy of his fight against those that the right considers “enemies of Spain”. According to the judge, the tourist who died of a heart attack while trying to access the El Prat airport during the protests against the trial was the victim of the act of a terrorist organization led, among others, by Puigdemont.
The judge’s decision was intended to ensure that Puigdemont could not benefit from an amnesty law that excluded serious crimes of terrorism. The earthquake that the judge’s decision produced in the middle of the negotiations had a result close to embarrassment: García Castellón had granted an extension after the deadline, the defense realized it and the National Court canceled the entire investigation. Along the way, a cascade of headlines in the media and applause from the political and media right. At the end of this edition, the Amnesty law continues its judicial journey and Puigdemont continues to evade justice.
Pablo Iglesias, free of all accusations
Pablo Iglesias Turrión is exempt from any charges. The former leader of Podemos and second vice-president of the Spanish government was formally accused by Judge García Castellón of the crimes of discovery and disclosure of secrets, computer damage and false accusations and complaints. He presented a reasoned statement before the High Court after transforming one of the most insignificant elements of the Villarejo case into the Pablo Iglesias case. The Supreme Court dismissed his accusation.
Iglesias had kept a copy of the cell phone card for months, which a former collaborator said had been stolen. Iglesias received the copy from a media group that claimed it affected him. The main victim exonerated Iglesias, but García Castellón did not find this relevant.
Encouraged by the right, García Castellón tried to remove the status of injured party from the second vice-president of the government, ordered his former adviser Dina Bousselham to stop sharing a lawyer with Iglesias, planned to go to Wales to question a computer technician who had tried to recover the information from the card and set aside the rest of the investigations into the Villarejo case to focus on an element consisting of a possible crime of revealing secrets and another of computer damage.
For months, García Castellón made headlines against Podemos and Iglesias. When the Supreme Court told him that there was no evidence to accuse the second vice president, he lengthened the investigation, forgetting Villarejo, in whose home copies of the card had appeared, which is why the prosecutor’s office always considered the police officer as the main suspect in the escape, and not Pablo Iglesias. When the criminal court forced him to close the case, García Castellón deducted testimonies so that local courts could continue their investigation.
At the same time, the magistrate reopened a file on the financing of Podemos, even though it had been archived in 2017 because it was based on excerpts from the pseudo-PISA report (Pablo Iglesias Sociedad Anónima). And he incorporated some accusations without proof from a former Venezuelan general, Pollo Carvajal, wanted by the United States for drug trafficking and other serious crimes. García Castellón used a device of the PP political brigade to promote his penultimate attack on Podemos.
The Prosecutor’s Office was outraged by the prospective nature of the investigations and the violation of the fundamental rights of the founders of Podemos, who were investigated secretly and were never charged. And when the Court also forced the judge to close the case, García Castellón inferred testimony against Juan Carlos Monedero for money laundering and embezzlement, without any firm accusations against the university professor being known to date.
Double standards with the PP
The impetus of these investigations against the “enemies” of Spain contrasts with the actions of García Castellón in another of his most important cases, the parapolice espionage of Luis Bárcenas with funds reserved at the time of the PP. The political brigade tried to sabotage the trial regarding the irregular financing of the PP and to ensure that its politicians were protected from the action of justice.
Manuel García Castellón chose the last working day before the August 2021 holidays to surprisingly announce that he had completed his investigation and that the case was archived for the PP’s general secretary at the time of the events, María Dolores de Cospedal.
In September, Anticorruption presented its appeal. It is one of the most energetic censures that have been addressed to the work of an investigating judge: the prosecution accuses García Castellón of having imposed “a red line” that avoided investigating the leadership of the Popular Party. The spying on Bárcenas, the judge had concluded, was an idea of the Minister of the Interior Fernández Díaz, a close friend of Rajoy and number two in the department.
The Third Section of the Criminal Chamber, presided over by Judge Alfonso Guevara, rejected the prosecutor’s appeal. Guevara and the rest of the judges repeatedly corrected García Castellón’s deviations, but in this case, as would happen later with the filing of the complaints against Repsol and Iberdrola, they agreed with the judge. It was the same chamber that would later order the closure of the investigation against Puigdemont.
