Carlos Vallejo files a lawsuit in Europe for the torture on Via Laietana.
Spanish justice has closed all doors to investigating crimes against humanity.
BarcelonaThe doors of the Spanish justice system have been closed to Carlos Vallejo many times. Now, together with the Irídia collective, this anti-Franco activist has decided to take his case to the European Court of Human Rights. Vallejo was arrested in December 1970. During the state of emergency, the police were able to detain him for an entire month on Via Laietana. The police used various torture techniques on him, all extremely painful, such as tying his hands under his legs and constantly punching and kicking him. They were never investigated. In November 2022, Vallejo, along with the Irídia collective and Òmnium Cultural, filed a complaint for crimes against humanity against her torturers.Vallejo's lawsuit was the first after the entry into force of the law of democratic memory of 2022. Even the Generalitat supported him and filed a private lawsuit. Despite all the appeals filed, the last one before the Constitutional Court, his case was dismissed, and the Spanish justice system decided not to investigate.
"This lawsuit in Europe is the first we have filed since the Spanish Democratic Memory Law came into force, and that makes it different from previous cases, since the law establishes the order to investigate the crimes of the Franco regime," says Sònia Olivella, a lawyer for a law on how one of Irídia's incidents. "It is a violation of the human rights convention, because the torture Carlos suffered is a crime against humanity," she adds.
The lawsuit alleges a violation of Articles 3 and 13 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which guarantees the right to an effective investigation into allegations of torture and the right to an effective remedy. The text emphasizes that the refusal of the Spanish courts to investigate constitutes a flagrant breach of the State's international obligations.
The torturers
In the complaint Vallejo filed with the Spanish courts, six members of the General Police Corps are identified: the first with the rank of chief commissioner, the second as commissioner, and the rest with the rank of inspectors, assigned to the Sixth Regional Brigade of Social Investigation of the Superior Police Headquarters. They are Vicente Juan Crece, Genuino Nicolás Navales García, Rafael Núñez Valverde, Francisco Javier Vázquez Torres, José Antonio González Juan, and Francisco Manuel Escobedo García. Navales was the one who directed the interrogations and torture. Vallejo recalls that he told him: "I am a professional police officer under Franco, I will be a professional police officer under democracy, and I will be a professional police officer when yours govern." Many of the defendants are already dead. Navales died in 1995. He suffered an accident and fell into a well in Zamora.
Investigative Court No. The Barcelona Provincial Court rejected the complaint and refused to investigate the events, citing the same old obstacles and disregarding the Spanish memory law: the statute of limitations and the principle of legality, as well as the 1977 amnesty law. The eighth section of the Barcelona Provincial Court upheld the decision, and finally the Constitutional Court.