Tuesday, March 26

Rufián faces an unprecedented crime with a prison sentence for airing secrets


The ERC spokesman, Gabriel Rufián. / EFE

The Prosecutor’s Office accepts the complaint from Clean Hands against the deputy and studies investigating another one from Ciudadanos for an aggravated disclosure of “information related to National Defense”

The Supreme Court Prosecutor’s Office has opened proceedings to investigate the complaint for alleged revelation of secrets that Manos Limpias filed against Gabriel Rufián for his statements on the 5th after the appearance in the official secrets commission of Congress of the former director of the National Center for Intelligence (CNI), Paz Esteban. But beyond the simple and classic disclosure of confidential information to which the pseudo-union points, the loquacity of the ERC deputy could open an unprecedented judicial route that would go even further.

And it is that it is “very likely”, according to all the sources consulted, that the complaint also raised by Ciudadanos about the same events and against the same protagonist before the State Attorney General’s Office will be joined by the Clean Hands letter, which the prosecutor of the Criminal Chamber Javier Huete has entrusted the prosecutor Antonio Pablo Rives. And the denunciation of the party of Inés Arrimadas, more solid and precise than that of Manos Limpias, points to Rufián as the author of a crime contemplated in article 598 of the Penal Code, more serious than that of simple disclosure, to which it would subsume, and for which no one has been convicted in recent decades, as recorded in the digitized files of the Judiciary.

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That precept, which is the one that Ciudadanos has invoked in its complaint against the ERC deputy before the Prosecutor’s Office, punishes with between one and four years in prison “who, without the purpose of favoring a foreign power, seeks, reveals, falsifies or disable information legally classified as reserved or secret, related to national security or national defense or related to the technical means or systems used by the Armed Forces or industries of military interest.

The Public Ministry weighs whether to act on the ERC spokesman for an offense punishable by up to four years in prison

Its “extreme specificity” – explain Supreme Court magistrates – has made this article of 598 of the Criminal Code almost unknown in the courts, which do not show that they have ever faced it. At least in the last decades. And it is that this crime must basically be committed by a civilian – in the event that he is a military man, it is governed by a more severe precept in the Military Penal Code – and who has also had access to information that has been “legally” classified by the Status as “reserved” or “secret”; something that, outside the Armed Forces, is usually only within the reach of CNI agents who are not in uniform or of senior Defense officials or the Presidency of the Government.

But it is also that, in order to incur in this crime, it is necessary that the disclosed information is related to “national security” or the use of its “technical means” (such as Pegasus), something that excludes the vast majority of officials or Administration workers, who would incur other less serious crimes if they revealed confidential information obtained by reason of their position. And if those preconditions were not sufficient, the defendant must have taken the information or disclosed it without any intention of spying for a foreign country, either for free or for remuneration.

not comparable

Never before had any deputy been denounced for allegedly airing those official secrets of the so-called Credit Control Committee for reserved expenses, so the background must be sought outside this area. But the closest cases found in court files are hardly comparable.

The criminal type is for people who, due to their position, reveal matters “legally” declared “secret” or “reserved”

Yes, there is a record of a civilian who tried to divulge information officially “classified” by the State. He was former CNI agent Roberto Flórez. But Flórez was sentenced in 2010 to twelve years for a crime of treason – the only time in a democracy – because his intention was to provide information to a foreign country, Russia, and therefore it was a very serious espionage attempt. .

Another close case, but not comparable because the protagonist was a military man and had no significance, was that of an infantry captain who was sentenced in 2016 by the First Territorial Military Court to 18 months in prison for keeping in his premises at the Herat barracks , in Afghanistan, NATO “secret” information even though his superiors had forbidden him. The captain was convicted under article 26 of the Military Penal Code, the equivalent of 598 of the Penal Code for civilians, but he is more severe.

“He has recognized part of the espionage”

As he left the appearance of the director of the CNI, Gabriel Rufián made public statements to journalists and gave an interview to TV3. Among other issues, the deputy said that Esteban had acknowledged that “part of the espionage is true”, but that “everything has been under court order”; that he had pointed out possible “foreign nations” as being responsible for other cases of surveillance that the CNI did not acknowledge; or that he had left the door open for other “state agencies” to have “spied beyond their legal possibilities.” Later, he wrote in a tweet that he was commenting on these aspects because all of them had already been “leaked” to the media and that his statements were a mere “interpretation.”


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