The case went where no other case had ever gone, but it ended up running into the same obstacles as always. This Tuesday, the Justice filed the only judicial complaint about police torture in Spain under the Franco regime, a case that made Julio Pacheco – and Rosa María García as a witness – the first victim of reprisals under the dictatorship to be heard in court in our country. Judge Ana María Iguacel, of the Court of Instruction No. 50 of Madrid, admitted that the complaint of the anti-Franco activist for torture against four members of the Politico-Social Brigade, including José Manuel Villarejo, had been processed, but a year after his statement, she shelved the case.
Based on the ruling of the Constitutional Court that once again closed the door to investigations into crimes of this type despite the current law on Democratic Memory, the judge deploys the usual battery of legal arguments that have put an end to the “more than a hundred” complaints filed in recent years by victims of Francoism. The majority of them, according to the CEAQUA collective, have not even been admitted to transformation.
Iguacel closes the judicial process by considering that the detention and torture that Pacheco denounces and that he suffered at the General Directorate of Security of the Puerta del Sol in 1975 “cannot be included” in the crimes against humanity due to the principle of legality and non-retroactivity of the law. And when the events occurred, this figure did not exist in the Spanish legal system, introduced in 2004. This means that the alternative, which is the qualification of the crime of torture – also later included in the Penal Code – is to limit the prescription without being able to rely on international law to move forward, argues the judge.
Pacheco had “some hope” that the case would be successful, but what he describes as “a new blow” in the struggle of the victims of the dictatorship for justice did not surprise him. “The truth is that I expected it. Impunity is terrible, it seems that there is no way out in the Spanish state and in reality the judge’s order is very good because it perfectly sums up how the law prevents it from continuing,” he says. This, even though, from the point of view of international law and several treaties signed by Spain, these types of crimes are neither amnestiable nor prescribed.
“How much longer?”
A member of the Spanish Democratic University Federation (FUDE), affiliated with the FRAP (Revolutionary Antifascist and Patriotic Front) in the 1970s, he was arrested in August 1975, when he was 19 years old. His story, which the judge reproduced in the car, recounts how, during his transfer to the Puerta del Sol, “he was beaten several times” and suffered “savage torture” for seven days. “He was handcuffed to a radiator […] “He was hit on the soles of his feet, he suffered simultaneous ‘wheels’ of blows from several police officers and with regular batons.” In addition, “he was not given any food, he was barely allowed to sleep” and “to break his will”, the police “showed him the wounds and bruises of his partner, Rosa María García”, who had also been detained in the same operation.
In fact, Rosa María, now his wife, also testified before the judge, in his case, as a witness. Anger is the emotion that her voice conveys after the announcement of the case. “We still do not have the right to the justice that corresponds to us as victims, even though it will be 49 years since the dictator’s death. This is something that does not happen with other victims. How much more time must pass?” “What government must there be in Spain to take this essential step?” asks the woman, who highlights the “helplessness” that this decision entails after the “hardness” of “the openness to remember and tell moments that leave a mark.” trauma forever.
For memorial and human rights groups, the recent decision “consolidates a model of impunity that is unacceptable in a state governed by the rule of law.” “This undermines and undermines, once again, the most fundamental rights of those who suffered Franco’s crimes,” CEAQUA, Amnesty International, Iridia and Sira stressed in a statement, in which they confirmed that they had appealed the order.
The organizations regret the ruling issued by the Constitutional Court last June in the case of Francisco Ventura, in retaliation for the Valencia dictatorship, on which Iguacel partially relied. And the fact is that, just as the groups had predicted and despite the fact that part of the government sold At the time of the Democratic Memory Law, the Constitutional Court certifies that the norm does not change in the matter of judging crimes and that the obstacles remain the same as before its entry into force. The ordinance, however, obtained the dissenting vote of two magistrates, which underlines “the need to review the constitutional doctrine” in these cases.
Legislative reforms
For this reason, and although the groups consider that another jurisprudence is possible under the protection of international law and show “their absolute rejection” of the interpretation of the courts, they consider that it is up to “the executive and the legislative power to act.” What they are asking for is to “promote all legislative measures” that “allow for criminal investigation” of crimes. Thus, they consider as “essential” the repeal or modification of the Amnesty Law and the reform of the Penal Code so that acts that, at the time of their commission, constituted crimes of genocide or crimes against humanity under international law can be prosecuted, even if they were not classified as such in Spain.
“The responsibility for maintaining this framework of impunity is shared by the three powers of the State and it is useless to focus solely and exclusively on the judiciary,” the organizations reason, emphasizing that some of these measures have sometimes been proposed to Congress but have ended up being rejected “by a large majority.” The latest attempt, that of reforming the Penal Code, with the votes of the PSOE and the right.
This is despite the fact that international bodies have been insisting for years that Spain has an obligation to pursue these human rights violations. Just a year ago, it was the turn of the United Nations Committee against Torture, which celebrated the approval of the Democratic Memory Law, but regretted that it “does not eliminate obstacles to the investigation” of crimes. Although Spain maintained that the norm “establishes procedures to guarantee the truth” through official investigations led by the Specialized Prosecutor’s Office, the committee reiterated the recommendation that measures be adopted “to guarantee” that torture or forced disappearances are not prescribed or subject to amnesty.
For now, the victims of the Franco regime are hoping that something like this will happen while they still cannot find an open door in justice. According to the prosecutor’s report, in 2023 there were four judicial proceedings for crimes committed in the context of the dictatorship, three of which were archived and awaiting appeal. The last one, that of Pacheco, was still alive. Until today.
