Marchena forgets to ask head of 1-O police op if he has been tried for a crime

BARCELONAJudge Manuel Marchena began the day's Supreme Court session in the Catalan referendum trial by admitting an error. Before beginning the witness examination of Guardia Civil Colonel Diego Pérez de los Cobos, Marchena forgot to ask him if he had ever been tried in court. So far this question had been asked of all the witnesses. This morning Marchena corrected himself before resuming the interrogation and asked the colonel if he had ever been tried for a crime,. "Yes, I was prosecuted and acquitted," admitted the colonel.

Pérez de los Cobos was charged with torturing a member of ETA, Kepa Urra, in 1997. The case dated back to 1992, and five other civil guards were indicted along with the colonel. Three of them were sentenced to four years in prison for physically abusing Kepa Urra while in custody. A Bilbao court of found that before transferring him to the Guardia Civil barracks, they handcuffed the prisoner and took him to a deserted field, stripped him, struck him with a blunt object, and dragged him across the ground. Pérez de los Cobos was acquitted because the court concluded that there was not enough evidence against him to connect him to this episode.

In fact, Pérez de los Cobos —who was assigned to anti-terror duties in the Basque Country for years— was not indicted for the same abuse as the other convicted officers, but rather for having covered Urra's mouth and nose and mistreating him while he was held in hospital and under guard. But the court did not find enough evidence to prove this other incident.

After his stint in the Basque Country, the Guardia Civil colonel —whose brother Francisco Pérez de los Cobos is the former president of the Constitutional Court— went to work at the Ministry of the Interior, where he has been stationed for the last twelve years, initially as an advisor to minister Alfredo Pérez Rubalcaba. Since 2011 he has been director of the Office of Coordination and Studies of the Secretary of State for Security under the orders of Jorge Fernández Díaz and later of Juan Ignacio Zoido. The PP government appointed him as the coordinator of the 1-O operation [which sought to prevent the independence referendum from taking place]. After the referendum he was promoted and appointed head of the Guardia Civil in Madrid.

Must witnesses be asked about whether they have ever been tried in court?

Spain’s law of criminal prosecution establishes that this question be asked of the witnesses before they begin their statement. In the same way that their identity is checked, they are also questioned as to whether they have any relationship of kinship or friendship with the defendants, and reminded that they are obliged to tell the truth. Even so, judicial sources explain that there is no regulation that establishes that it is imperative or obligatory to ask this.