what he did Maria Serrano It started in 2015: when he began to write about what was happening at Seprona in Seville, where he had been a sergeant since 2012. Nine years later, he is on psychological leave, although active; They confiscated his weapon, expelled him from the pavilion of the command of the Civil Guard of Seville and took away his specialty.
Today, with everything he investigated archived by the military justice system, he faces more than a year in prison before a military tribunal for accusation and false complaint… precisely, for this complaint. This week, he summoned the media for a “public revelation”, a figure collected in Law 2/2023regulating the protection of people who report regulatory violations and the fight against corruption, and which requires that all public administrations have a channel to report cases and protect the whistleblower. In the Civil Guard, at the moment, this does not exist.
In this public revelation, “the first in Spain”, he called EL ESPAÑOL, all saidgiving names and surnames. He also thanked insistently the support of the Civil Guard associations, such as the AUGC, the Corruption Alerters Group and his lawyer, Jesús Díaz.
“This didn’t happen to me because I’m a woman. This happened to me because of who I am. And because Paco, Pepito and Juanito, and those before me, didn’t have what it took.”
– After all these years, would you do the same thing again?
-Certainly. I’m not stupid: I would correct things, but I couldn’t look the other way in the face of alleged criminal activity. Nor would he, in life, obey illegitimate orders.
Maria remembers that she arrived at Seprona with enthusiasm. “We tackled major issues: crimes environmental, urban planning, against heritage… the fines were very heavy, and we were sometimes up against powerful companies. As soon as I arrived, a colleague told me that we had a jewel here.” María is referring to the subordinate, a first corporal, whom she investigated for alleged corruption.
He immediately noticed, he recalls, “that I was a typical person who gets upset because there was someone else above him and, what’s more, it was a woman. I’m not a bullfighter, but I know bullfighting. I came across comments like who was that kid. Everything was a contradiction, I didn’t agree with anything. I wonderedI went alone. He told me that I didn’t have to answer for it. A person like that wears a sailor suit. He didn’t do it only with me. Later, colleagues from other units also told me this.
Maria Serrano assures that she would do it again.
In less than a year, he has reported several disciplinary sanctions in writing. One has prospered, serious misconduct due to insubordination. “Then came the change of lieutenant-section chief.”
-What was the work environment like?
-Rarefied. Also, I didn’t have an office at the time: we worked in an open space. We saw each other’s faces no matter what.
That’s why “I had placed my hopes in this lieutenant. But there was a conversation with him during which he told me that nothing was happening at Seprona and that I had to start from scratch. that will educate after all and the guards.”
Later, “it blew up in the lieutenant’s face: two reports arrived from the Civil Guard of Malaga irregularities in waste management, used vegetable oils, several companies that were operating illegally. “The investigation is under investigation and this corporal is charged first.”
In her free time, “and because my lieutenant told me to,” Maria opens three investigations. One of them, “Operations Headquarters.” The last one, linked to Mercasevilla “They were three horrible years. I even found myself forced to write some basic rules of coexistence that I had everyone sign. “I was forced to put in writing that upon arrival, the subordinates of the Civil Guard had to say ‘hello’.”
-Then, when everything was classified, the head of the Command called him into his office.
-What the military judge said later, that the humiliation he shouted at me was a paternal fight, was to frame it. Can I scold a man in a maternal way?
“He was crazy.” All this was said out loud. Among other things, he told her that she was “the one who didn’t fit in the unit,” that she “wasn’t moving, that she hadn’t won (after all), that she should stop taking shit out of the unit, pack my bags and get out of Seprona.
The Civil Guard brigade, next to the Guadalquivir River.
“I left that office crying. It was a huge humiliation. A commander, who heard everything, like everyone else in the factory, took me away and made me sit in an office until I stopped crying. From there, I went home to reconsider my decision. And then it was to the civilian doctor of the Command, who considered that I should be dismissed.”
That’s when they opened a case against him, the first of many, for loss of psychophysical abilities. They also confiscated his flag, his destination, his weapon and his specialty. Marie dared to accuse the chain of command act to cover up what happened to that subordinate. At the same time, he requested that a file be opened with the head of the Seville command on what had happened in that office. The case ended with the official conclusion that it was a “father quarrel.”
In 2017, this head of the Command filed a complaint against him. In 2021, he was promoted by Minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska to the position of Chief of Staff of the Civil Guard. “Since 2017 I have this sword of Damocles“: a military criminal charge, in a case that was strictly police: I investigated corruption and I denounced it.”
This happened to Seprona “with all the consequences, and look at the consequences they brought me. For me they didn’t leave me alone. When they opened my psychotechnical file in 2019, all of the above stopped, in accordance with article 101.3 of the Civil Guard Personnel Law. They released me and assigned me to Madrid, to drive prisoners, a destination to which he opposed by appeal and they agreed with him.
-Would you like to change something in the Civil Guard?
-The Civil Guard is not what this minority is. But it would change a lot of things: it must be given transparency, real fairness and real modernity.
“Nobody dares.”
Alicia Sánchez, secretary for women of the National Board of Directors of the AUGC, emphasizes to EL ESPAÑOL “I do not know if the men of the Civil Guard have ‘paternal quarrels’. The phrase says the phrase. What I think about it It is certain that no man is summoned to an office and arrested shouting as they did with María.
“When a woman is harassed in the Civil Guard and I’m not talking about sexual harassment, but rather being singled out for asking for a reduction in hours or a breastfeeding permit, if she reports it, it comes to nothing. No one dares to report the person who is harassing her. “There are cases, but they are just the tip of the iceberg. For over a year, we have been recommending that they not report them internally: that they go directly to court.”
Alicia Sánchez recalls in this regard the recent and firm sentence of the Supreme Court last May: 19 years in prison for a sergeant of the Civil Guard for rape and harassment of a subordinate. He harassed her to have an abortion, changed her schedule depending on whether or not she was “willing” to his requests and sent her emails of a sexual nature, humiliating her, objectifying her and uttering insults.
“The agent had two witnesses: one of them, a lieutenant: they opened a disciplinary file against her for perjury. It was a colleague of mine who, in 2015, sent a letter to the Director General of the Civil Guard and the melon was opened. For all this, women, in the Civil Guard, are not as protected as they should be outside, but we are supposed to fight against all this.”
