The only legal case on police torture under the Franco regime has been archived due to the statute of limitations. Court number 50 of Madrid has decided to dismiss the case that analyzed whether Julio Pacheco, an anti-Franco activist, was tortured during his arrest in the basement of the Puerta del Sol, among others, by José Manuel Villarejo. The judge considers that the facts are prescribed, basing her decision on the resolutions of the Constitutional Court that closed the door to the investigation of this type of crimes allegedly committed during the dictatorship.
Pacheco was the first victim of Franco’s repression to declare himself injured in court in a criminal case. “This is beginning to break the wall of silence and impunity,” he celebrated as he left the courthouse in Plaza de Castilla, after appearing before the judge. “They knocked on the door and I found a gun pointed at my face,” he had explained a few minutes earlier inside the courthouse.
All the cases that have reached the hands of a judge for this type of complaint have ended up in the file due to the statute of limitations of the facts, given the time that has passed, and that of Julio Pacheco has been the only one that, for the moment, remains open. The judge asked a few months ago if the case should be closed for this reason and, as reported by the coordinator Ceaqua in a statement this Tuesday, her decision was to order the case to be closed.
Among other arguments, the judge relies on what was recently said by the Constitutional Court in the case of Francisco Ventura, against whom the Valencia dictatorship retaliated. A few months ago, the Court of Guarantees certified that the new law on democratic memory was not sufficient to open the door to criminal investigations into this type of events if they had already expired, taking into account that some crimes whose perpetrators were accused were not involved. was part of the Spanish Penal Code at the time.
“In 1974, the figure of crime against humanity did not exist in our Spanish penal system,” the judge justifies. “The principle of legality and the requirement of criminal qualification by the law in force at the time of the commission of the acts,” he adds, prevent relying on international law to advance the case.
José Manuel Villarejo “the German”
The crime of torture also appeared in the Penal Code until years after the events and “the state of jurisprudence has not changed after the promulgation of the Historical Memory Law,” says the judge, referring to the new rules of democratic memory that came into force in 2022. The decision in the case of Francisco Ventura of the Constitutional Court, the court decides, “requires a rethink of the investigation and the declaration of free dismissal due to prescription” without the police officers identified by the still living victim having been called to testify.
From the platform that coordinated Pacheco’s accusation, they announced that they would appeal the case before the Provincial Court of Madrid. They also demand, as they have done on several occasions, that the 1977 Amnesty Law be amended or repealed “so that international crimes cannot be amnestied” and that the Spanish Penal Code guarantee that crimes of this type committed by the State before if they are classified, “they can be investigated and prosecuted.”
One of the police officers identified by name and surname by Julio Pacheco was José Manuel Villarejo, currently retired and accused in dozens of cases related to his alleged criminal activities. “We knew he was one of the torturers. We called him among us ‘the German’ because he looked like a German, with a square face, very red, he is perfectly identified,” Pacheco explained to the court.
