We thought that Guardian editor Katherine Viner had learned her lesson about Podemos’s thuggish boss Pablo Iglesias a year ago. Sadly, it seems that she hasn’t. Here’s a reminder.
The
Guardian’s chum describes himself as “a perverted Marxist turned psychopath”. This is a man who has said of a
TV presenter who asked him an awkward question, “I’d whip her till she bled.”
Now Sam Jones is repeating his whitewash job on
his hero and the Guardian’s favourite Marxist psychopath. Iglesias is in deep legal
doo-doo over the theft of a mobile phone from a female member of his party when
they were MEPs together. In a complicated story, the contents of the memory
card ended up on the computer of a dodgy police superintendent. Iglesias
claimed that the police had stolen the card and that he was the victim. A judge
believes otherwise and now Iglesias himself is under investigation for stealing
the phone, keeping the card for over six months, and then destroying it as it contained
intimate photos of him and the woman. He claims that he kept the card to
protect a vulnerable young woman.
Sam Jones describes these events thus (our
emphasis):
Iglesias was handed the original memory card from Bousselham’s
phone by a media proprietor in January 2016, and says he held on to it for a few months to protect his colleague from
pressure and embarrassment.
On Wednesday, [Judge] García Castellón asked the supreme
court to investigate the deputy prime minister for the alleged “offences of
discovering and revealing secrets”, filing a false crime report and damaging the card, which was eventually
returned to Bousselham.
While the Guardian may describe this as “holding
on to the card for a few months to protect his colleague from pressure and
embarrassment”, the court took the view that a woman who can be an MEP is quite
capable of looking after herself and does not need the protection of a man.
Which is why the allegations against Iglesias include an aggravating element of
gender abuse, rather embarrassingly for a progressive socialist whose wife is
the minister of equality. The wronged woman ended up with her “protector”
giving her an online newspaper to play with, a post-modern version of the
classic appartement meublé.
The charges that are proposed against Iglesias
are precisely:
descubrimiento y revelación de secretos con agravante de género: uncovering (sic) and revealing secrets, aggravated by gender perspective (the Spanish word “descubrir” is defined primarily as “manifesting, making patent, uncovering what was covered” rather than finding something new (one to four years and fine, not including the gender aspect).
daños informáticos: deliberate damage or sabotage to computer data or documents (six months to three years, depending on seriousness)
denuncia falsa: making a false accusation of a criminal offence (up to two years and fine)
This is strong stuff. Iglesias is
looking at up to nine years in prison.
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The “damage” done to the card before it “was
eventually returned to Bousselham”, as Sammy knows full well but chooses not
to explain, was its total physical disabling to ensure that no data could be
retrieved by any means. It was sent by the court to a company in Wales that
specialises in data retrieval from damaged devices. They could retrieve
nothing at all. The court found that the damage was deliberate and complete,
and appeared to have been caused by microwaving it.
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How does the Guardian handle the legal threat to its Bolivarian hero? Like this.
A judge at Spain’s highest criminal court, the audiencia
nacional, sent a written request to the supreme court
this week asking it to look into Iglesias’ actions in relation to a tangled and
long-running spying case.
Young Sammy knows exactly what he is doing when
he wields the whitewash brush. His disingenuous comment that the Supreme Court
has been asked to “look into” the facts by the Audiencia
Nacional conceals a basic fact of the Spanish legal
system. Under continental civil law the initial investigation is carried out by
a judge; if there is apparent cause to take the matter further towards a
criminal trial, the judge can make the suspect “imputado”. That is not quite
the same as a charge in the English system (“questioned under caution” would
probably be the nearest equivalent), but it is a formal process in which
witnesses can be subpoenaed and evidence is given on oath, and it is treated
very seriously. The Audiencia Nacional wanted to
apply that status to Iglesias but was unable to do so for a technical reason:
as a senior politician Iglesias enjoys the privilege of proceeding directly to
the Supreme Court, skipping all lower courts including the Audiencia
Nacional, which performs the instruction
(investigation) but has to refer the actual criminal process to the Supreme
Court for action. The Audiencia Nacional was simply passing the paperwork to the court that has the competence
to handle the criminal process.
But merely for that simple act, the judge of the Audiencia Nacional has found himself on the receiving end of death threats. The police are investigating them. Threaten Podemos and face the consequences. Back Podemos, on the other hand, and a journalistic future with the Guardian is assured.
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“Make it look like an accident.” |
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Iglesias talks a lot about the sewers of the
state. As the boss of a party that is itself imputado as an institution for illegal funding by Venezuela and
money-laundering through a Caribbean tax haven, as well as for false accounting
and embezzlement, a party that has close ties to the Iranian regime, Iglesias knows
quite a bit about the politics of the sewer. After all, his party’s legal
problems stem from its former lawyer who spilled the beans when his professional
advice was ignored. He quickly found him faced with allegations of sexual
abuse. He sued the party for libel and won. Yes, indeed, the sewer is the
natural habitat for the Guardian’s psychopathic chum.
 An expert on the politics of the sewer |
The privilege by which politicians are fast-tracked to the Supreme Court is known as aforamiento. Pablo Iglesias is on record as calling for an end to it (“It is not compatible with equality before the law,” he said in 2014) but he seems to have forgotten about that now. Moreover, the ethical code of Podemos adopted in 2014 required, as do other parties, that anyone holding public office who is imputado should resign. When it became clear that this could happen to Iglesias himself, the code was changed to apply only to people actually put on trial.
And
it isn’t as if he has anything to worry about anyway. First, his immunity would
have to be lifted by the Parliament, and Sánchez will back him. Second, the Bar
Council is under review and Iglesias is pressing Sánchez to make sure that the
new one will be amenable. And third, even if it does come to trial, the
prosecution has already been nobbled by Sánchez’ decision early in his term of office
to shunt his justice minister over to be the state prosecutor. She will know
what to do.
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| The Guardian’s view on how Spain should be governed. (They’re going to whip her till she bleeds.) |
The EU is beginning to take notice of what is going on. Angela Merkel is concerned.
Poland? Poland! Who said Poland??
Sources
(English)
Bloomberg
Spain’s Toxic
Politics, Health Woes Have Got Merkel Worried
Guardian
Spain’s deputy PM
says call for inquiry is part of attempt to discredit him
(Spanish)
OKDiario
Iglesias
exigió a Sánchez diseñar un Poder Judicial que le salvara de la imputación que ahora
pide el juez
Iglesias demanded that Sánchez should design a Bar Council that would save him
from being made “imputado” as the judge now wants
VozPópuli
El
juez imputa a Podemos por la presunta financiación ilegal
A
judge makes Podemos “imputado” for alleged illegal funding
El Independiente
El
nuevo código ético de Podemos permite a Pablo Iglesias no dimitir de momento
Podemos’s
new ethical code allows Pablo Iglesias not to resign at this time
Europapress
El
juez García-Castellón denuncia ante la Policía amenazas tras pedir al Supremo
que investigue a Pablo Iglesias
Judge García-Castellón reports threats to the police after asking the Supreme
Court to investigate Pablo Iglesias
El Mundo
El
juez del ‘caso Dina’ denuncia al CGPJ que se siente “señalado” públicamente por
Pablo Iglesias
The
judge in the mobile phone card case reports to the Bar Council that he feels
publicly “singled out” by Pablo Iglesias
El Independiente
Cuando Pablo Iglesias criticaba el aforamiento: “No es
compatible con la igualdad ante la ley”
When
Pablo Iglesias criticised aforamiento
“It is not compatible with equality before the law.”
