He Commissioner Juan Marquezfrom the Superior Police Headquarters of Palma, has testified as a witness of the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor this Wednesday, trying to shore up the accusations that he himself and his partner Juan Palomo armed against judge Penalva, prosecutor Subirán and four former agents of the Money Laundering Unit, and for which they are being tried for alleged illegal detentions, obstruction of justice, disclosure of secrets and coercion during the investigation of the Cursach case.
It was not until the turn of Javier Barinaga, a lawyer for Penalva and Subirán, who retired early, when the cracks in the evidence provided by Márquez and Palomo, known as ‘the Juans’
During the morning, the prosecutor Tomás Herranz has directed his interrogation trying to get the commissioner to speak just enough, continually interrupting him so that he only said if it was ratified in each of the reports for the 24 imputed leaks. The court has come to ask the prosecutor to ask “interesting questions”, “because it is an oral hearing”, because he limited himself to reading said reports.
The accusations against the six defendants, for whom the Prosecutor’s Office requests almost 600 years in prison, are based on the reports of ‘los Juanes’. The lawyers for the defendants have pointed out the inconsistencies, errors, and speculation included in said reports.
For example, regarding the 2019 report that started this case, they failed to include the testimonies of the people who were arrested in the ORA case (alleged rigging of the Palma parking machine contest) and who denied having received pressure or coercion from Penalva They will go up and the four Blanqueo policemen.
“Did people who deny coercion have to be recorded in the proceedings, yes or no?” Márquez has recognized that it must have been like that but he does not remember if they even called those people.
Whose idea was it to spy on two journalists?
“Who proposes to intervene the mobile phones of journalists?” Barinaga asked him, to which the prosecutor protested. “The question is pertinent because that is why we are all here.” Márquez has responded that in a meeting with the Judge Florit and the Prosecutor Carrau –both were denounced for spying on journalists– his partner and he suggested that journalists’ calls could be tapped, after “the four” reviewed the jurisprudence in this regard. Then the prosecutor consulted Anticorruption and obtained free rein.
In one of the reports by ‘los Juanes’, branded as “mendacious” by the lawyer for Penalva y Subirán, he refers to the leak of an event that never existed, as the lawyer has stressed. “The statement that says inspector Blanca Ruiz and agent Iván Bandera leaked [ambos, enjuiciados] of the Ico [un testigo del caso Cursach] does not exist, they never took a statement from him in jail. Márquez has not known how to respond. “It will be looked at to see if it is so,” he said.
Another leaked piece of news that ‘the Juanes’ attributed to “the entire group of defendants”, and which dealt with policemen investigated for corruption who gave training classes paid for with public money. “They were not secret proceedings, did you verify the proceedings to find out?” Javier Barinaga asked. “We thought they were kept secret,” the commissioner has limited himself to responding.
“I never filter”
The lawyer Barinaga has revealed that the police reports of ‘los Juanes’ “confuse” the time of publication of the news in digital media.
This lawyer has asked about the information that has appeared in the newspaper Last minute about the investigations into the Penalva and Subirán case and why he did not investigate it. “I don’t investigate what I want,” Márquez responded angrily. “I never filter. And if I don’t go and file a complaint. And I have not investigated myself.” The commissioner refers to the report that he himself made on leaks in which he investigates and exonerates himself from them.
The arrest of fellow police officers
Márquez explained that “I have never worked in Internal Affairs, but I have done many investigations of police officers, which have culminated in the arrest of colleagues. It is not mandatory that I investigate Internal Affairs”, he stressed, in relation to the irregularity that can suppose that the four money laundering agents in the Cursach case They will not be investigated by that specialized unit.
Commissioner Juan Márquez denies hostility towards the accused. “With Judge Penalva I went to shoot together. He was a person who was affectionate, very cooperative,” he said.
About the arrests of money laundering agents Iván Bandera and José Luis García, maintains that they were normal and that they gave up their phones voluntarily. Regarding that of Iván Bandera. “We informed him of his rights and the reason for his arrest. A lawyer came and in his presence gave us the mobile codes. We are always very neat”, Márquez has pointed out, who has said that this motive, Bandera’s, “was essential in an investigation for revealing secrets.”
How to seal a mobile
“What is the seal certificate of a mobile like? Who signs it?” Barinaga inquired. “The seals are not mandatory – Márquez responded -, because there is no better guarantee than the judicial police, who are the right hand of this Chamber”. The lawyer has repeated the question: “I do not do seal records, I take the specialist and he does it. Inspector Blanca Ruiz’s mobile phone was not sealed,” he has ended up acknowledging.
“Why were the cell phones of the journalists handed over to the Justice lawyers and those of the police officers, no?” Márquez has denied this issue. “I try to demonstrate the way of working of this gentleman and his partiality,” stressed the lawyer for Penalva y Subirán.
Márquez affirms that in order to analyze many of the leaked information, they were not based on the ‘Whatsapp’ messages seized, but on the supposed fact that they were “secret” causes. Both the commissioner and the prosecutor Herranz have tried to unlink the accusations for the leaks of the Sancus chat messages, maintained between the defendants, whose legality or illegality will be known with the sentence.
He denies the reprisals suffered by Penalva and Subirán
“It is not true what Penalva or Subirán say about the fact that they suffered a series of reprisals; that a car burned down, well, that is the only true thing,” Juan Márquez assured. According to him, a car caught fire next to Penalva’s, but it was not his, and the defendants “wanted to link him to a series of threats.”
Prosecutor Herranz has insisted on Penalva’s complaints in this regard. “There was another that said that they had moved a pot in her house and it could have been a robbery. The Robbery group was sent and they verified that it had been a cleaner who worked in her house,” Márquez said.
