Several photojournalists will face a judicial process for false testimony in Madrid. The Provincial Court of Madrid, as it has advanced The jump, has decided to confirm the acquittal of a national police officer accused of assaulting several media professionals at the Vox rally in Vallecas during the campaign for the last regional elections that ended in riots. A resolution that, according to this medium, also endorses that the photojournalists be brought before a court accused of lying during the process against the police officer.
Santiago Abascal finds in Vallecas what he was looking for
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@juancarlosmohr, @grodiraa companion of @publico_es and I, finally, will face criminal proceedings for false testimony (up to 2 years in prison) by testifying for a police assault that the judge considers did not exist.https://t.co/U5cKwXtOy6
— • Guille8Martinez • (@Guille8Martinez) February 16, 2022
The rally took place on April 7 last year in the Plaza de la Constitución in Vallecas, also known as the ‘red’ square, with Santiago Abascal presenting Vox’s candidacy for the Madrid elections on May 4. Several hundred people gathered in the square of this neighborhood in the south of Madrid to protest against the presence of the far-right party and the National Police ended up charging. Several arrests were made and the photojournalist Guillermo Martínez denounced that same day having been assaulted by an agent while he was doing his job.
Today a police officer beat me and threw me to the ground after telling him that I was covering the anti-fascist rally in Vallecas as a journalist.
On the floor he took my arm to get me up when he found out that they were recording everything.
Thanks for the support.
🎥 @grodira pic.twitter.com/2DNlLUje2l
— • Guille8Martinez • (@Guille8Martinez) April 7, 2021
The judicial process against the police officer accused of assaulting him ended in November of last year with a court ruling that acquitted the agent and put on the table the accusation of false testimony against Rodríguez and several other photojournalists who had recorded the events that he denounced. . They all appeared at the trial with the obligation to tell the truth and, in the judge’s opinion, they did not tell the truth, although they deny having made up his testimony to incriminate the police.
The decision has been confirmed by the Provincial Court of Madrid and now it will be a court in the Plaza de Castilla that decides whether to open a process against them for false testimony. This crime, according to article 458.2 of the Penal Code, punishes witnesses who lie in a trial in a criminal case against the accused with up to three years in prison and fines. The most serious version of the crime, which is not adapted to this case because the agent has been acquitted, considers whether the false testimony also underpins the defendant’s conviction.
The sentence, as El Salto explains, accepts the agent’s version as correct: that the photojournalist threw himself to the ground and yelled at him when the agent offered him his hand to get up. Martínez’s version, however, is different: “He hit me and threw me to the ground,” he said on his Twitter account shortly after the events, even once he had identified himself as a journalist who was covering the event. .
www.eldiario.es