The prosecutor who accuses the investigators of the ‘Cursach case’: “They encouraged each other and no one dared to antagonize the judge and prosecutor” | Spain

“Group psychology allowed everyone to act as a unit in which they encouraged each other and none of them dared to antagonize the judge and prosecutor even though they had doubts.” The final report of the prosecutor Tomás Herranz, in charge of directing the accusation that sees former judge Manuel Penalva, the retired prosecutor Miguel Ángel Subírán and four agents from the money laundering group of the Balearic National Police, has pivoted on this idea. the trial that has been ongoing since last June against the six officials for alleged irregularities in the investigation of the case against Bartolomé Cursach, the largest nightlife businessman in Mallorca. This Tuesday the prosecutor has made his conclusions final and maintains his initial request for prison terms that total more than 500 years for the six accused.

The prosecution has maintained the bulk of its accusations and has barely withdrawn some of the episodes of obstruction of justice that it accused of some of the defendants. Former judge Manuel Penalva faces a sentence of 118 years in prison for a crime of revealing secrets, 15 crimes of illegal detention, two of obstruction of justice and two of judicial malfeasance, while the prosecution claims for the former prosecutor Miguel Ángel Subíran a sentence of 121 years for the same crimes. For the four National Police agents, the requested sentences range from 83 to 110 years in prison for a string of similar crimes. Herranz has explained that in his final brief he has not withdrawn the accusations for alleged revelation of secrets, despite the fact that the court annulled the inclusion of the WhatsApp conversations on which they were based. “In the event that we were not satisfied with the sentence that was handed down at the time, let it not be blamed on the prosecutor who had withdrawn the facts,” said Herranz, who has insisted on his disagreement with the decision.

After the conclusions, the prosecutor opened the presentation of final reports, in which Judge Penalva has accused of acting “with biases and prejudices” and of not having decided with “impartiality” in the decisions he made throughout the process. “They had a black conscience,” he said of the six defendants, whom he accused of acting together and encouraging each other guided by prejudices. “Socrates is credited with affirming the four characteristics that correspond to the judge: listening courteously, responding wisely, weighing prudently, and deciding impartially. He looked at the room and the court is endowed with these virtues. When I turn my eyes and see the dock, with a person who was a judge at the time, I see that the less he fails to weigh prudently and decide impartially, because he did neither one nor the other,” Herranz began. in his speech.

“Prejudices and preferences”

For more than three and a half hours he has been reeling off the accusations contained in his writing one by one and questioning the actions, especially, of the investigating judge. For Herranz, the magistrate made the decisions before the statements were made, even in the absence of evidence of a crime, and did not take any measure “to prevent his prejudices and preferences from having an impact on his decisions.” Herranz has reviewed the arrests, in his opinion illegal, that were carried out during the investigation of the so-called ORA case, which investigated the alleged rigging of the competition for the award of the limited parking service in Palma. A contest that, Herranz recalled, “lacked any irregularity” and in which there was no indication of a crime and that is why the case was archived.

For the prosecutor, the investigation of ORA case It was “prospective” and began with the statement of a witness who did not provide a “source of evidence.” For the prosecutor, it is “astonishing” that a case was initiated with a statement in which “there is nothing, everything is speculation, everything is discussed and said” because he considers that at that moment the judge should have told the declarant “go away.” and as soon as you have some proof, you come back.” The Public Ministry believes that the arrests carried out during the investigation were criminal because “they were arbitrary and were not justified” and has indicated that the objective of the arrests of several officials was for them to denounce third parties, an action that the prosecutor He has confessed that it “repulses” him.

There have been numerous moments during his intervention in which he has read the messages that the accused exchanged in a WhatsApp group, the nullity of which the accused claimed considering that the information had been obtained illicitly through the intervention of the mobile phones of two journalists that was considered illegal in two sentences. The prosecutor has read a series of messages from Penalva in those chats in which he said that it was a “bitch” not to be able to “book” one of the businessmen investigated for a new cause. “She’s a bitch, he says, go with the impartiality, go with the consideration,” the prosecutor said with some sarcasm. During the end of his presentation, Herranz wanted to summarize the reasons for the facts that he believes have an explanation in mass psychology. “There are multiple examples of the nourishment of group psychology that allowed everyone to act as a unit in which they encouraged each other and none of them dared to contradict the judge and the prosecutor despite having doubts,” Herranz stressed. who has also cited Sigmund Freud and Ortega y Gasset to theorize about the “group bias” that can cause in the judge a predetermination towards guilt that is far from what should be an assessment of the facts regardless of the belief of the person. put on trial.