This morning began in Madrid the trial of the 21 detained in the Congress grounds on September 25, 2012, most of them accused of crimes such as public disorder, resistance, damage, injury and attacks against authority. In total, the prosecution requested prison sentences of up to 112 years for all, with individual sentences of up to eight years in prison. Before the opening of the oral trial, six of the accused agreed with the prosecution on prison sentences which will be replaced by fines amounting to 1,320 euros after application, 12 years after the facts, of a circumstance mitigating excessive delay.
On this first day of the trial, which will last until November 28, preliminary questions were conducted and the testimonies of several National Police agents who intervened in the security system that day were heard. According to sources familiar with the matter, some of them were Corps commanders and agents who acted in civilian clothes during the demonstration.
Known as 25S, this day in 2012 resulted in the arrest of 35 people. Many of them reported ill-treatment and torture after their arrest. In fact, Spain was condemned by the Court of Human Rights in 2021, finding that these allegations of police abuse had not been adequately investigated.
Agree to put an end to uncertainty
Twelve years later, and without having investigated the allegations of ill-treatment, six of the accused admitted the offense of disturbing public order, which earned them a prison sentence of 11 months which will be replaced by a fine. Of these six, two of them accepted another sentence of 11 months in prison for the crime of aggravated assault with use of a dangerous instrument, as reported by judicial sources, who added that three other defendants also accepted two months in prison. .and 20 days in prison for the crime of simple attack.
“The sentences of those who accepted 22 months in prison are commuted to a financial penalty during this same period at the rate of two euros per day,” said Daniel Amelang, lawyer for Red Jurídica and defender of three of the defendants who accepted. with the Ministry of Finance.
The lawyer explained that “they preferred to comply with the heavy prison sentences that were requested against them, which reached eight years in prison.” He also stressed that this legal process began 12 years ago: “The situation of these people has changed a lot. Some are parents and faced with the remote possibility of going to prison, they chose to make an agreement with the prosecution. This way they also avoid having to wait any longer, as it may be another year before a final decision is made.”
For their part, the lawyers of the other accused requested that their clients testify once the evidence is complete, their testimony will therefore be the last heard before this criminal court. All of them decided not to accept the agreement proposed by the prosecution, at the same time that, through their lawyers, they denied the crimes with which they are accused and requested their free acquittal. In this sense, the lawyers have already made available to the judge various documentary elements, such as photographs and videos, which would prove his innocence.
The prosecution claims that on September 25, around 500 people violently attacked the police forces deployed in the Plaza de Neptuno, a few meters from the Congress of Deputies, overturning the fences and throwing blunt objects at them. This “forced us to organize the deployment of different police intervention units to try to contain them,” the public prosecutor said in a press release. The police charges even reached inside the Atocha police station.
From their point of view, there would have been various “coordinated” and “organized” groups, as well as other individuals, who dedicated themselves “to causing destruction on public roads, trying to get beyond the established security cordons , throwing objects, not only against security forces, but against police vehicles, as well as on the road and public accesses, causing traffic interruptions.
This version of the facts was confirmed by the police officers who testified today, according to the accused’s defense sources. “One of them even declared that he had never seen so much violence in a demonstration,” add these sources.
Likewise, the testimony given this Monday made it possible to hear, from one of these agents of the National Police, that it is they who decide which demonstrations to infiltrate in civilian clothes and that prior surveillance and investigation into the organizers without cover were carried out. . judicial, “but once the report was established, they made it available to the courts”, underline the sources consulted.
“Repressive escalation” in criminal proceedings
In this sense, eight of the alleged organizers of the concentration were prosecuted by the National Court a few days before September 25. Elena Martínez, currently spokesperson for the Assembly for Support of the Defendants, was one of them. In her eyes, this judicial process means a “repressive escalation”, as she expressed before the start of the trial, which began when Cristina Cifuentes was in charge of the Government Delegation of Madrid, responsible for planning the security system during calls of this type. .
On September 25, 2012, more than 1,300 agents from 30 groups of Police Intervention Units (UIP) arrived in the capital out of a total of 52 that exist in Spain. According to the Government Delegation, 6,000 people demonstrated that day in Neptuno. “We were chased and identified. There was a police deployment like there has not been in other mobilizations,” Martínez underlined. Ultimately, she and her co-defendants were acquitted of an alleged crime against high-ranking organizations in the country. The order, issued by Judge Santiago Pedraz, specifies that at no time was the normal course of the parliamentary session of the 25th modified.
