Six of the 21 accused of ‘Surround Congress’ 12 years ago agree with the Prosecutor’s Office to avoid jail

This morning the trial of the 21 detained in the Surround the Congress on September 25, 2012 began in Madrid, most of them accused of crimes such as public disorder, resistance, damage, injuries and attacks against authority. In total, for all of them the Public Ministry requested prison sentences that reached 112 years, with individual sentences of up to eight years in prison. Before the opening of the oral trial, six of the accused have reached an agreement with the Prosecutor’s Office to prison sentences that will be replaced by fines amounting to 1,320 euros after applying, 12 years after the events, a mitigating circumstance of undue delays .

On this first day of the trial, which will last until November 28, preliminary questions have been carried out and the testimony of several National Police officers who intervened in the security device that day has been heard. According to sources familiar with the case, some of them have been Corps commanders and agents who acted in civilian clothes during the protest.

Known as 25S, that day in 2012 resulted in 35 people being arrested. Many of them reported ill-treatment and torture after arrest. In fact, Spain was condemned by the Human Rights Court in 2021, considering that these alleged police abuses were not adequately investigated.

Agree to end uncertainty

Twelve years later, and without having investigated the allegations of mistreatment, six of the accused have admitted to the crime of public disorder, resulting in a sentence of 11 months in prison that will be replaced by a financial fine. Of these six, two of them have accepted another sentence of 11 months in prison for a crime of aggravated attack with the use of a dangerous instrument, as reported by legal sources, who have added that three other of the accused have also accepted two months. and 20 days in jail for the crime of basic attack.

“The sentences for those who have accepted 22 months in prison are commuted to a financial sentence during that same time at a rate of two euros per day,” specified Daniel Amelang, lawyer from Red Jurídica and defender of three of the accused who have agreed with the Fiscal Ministry.

The lawyer explained that “they have preferred compliance with the high prison sentences that were requested for them, which reached eight years in prison.” He also stressed that this judicial process began 12 years ago: “The circumstances of these people have changed a lot. Some are parents and faced with the remote possibility of going to prison, they have chosen to make an agreement with the Prosecutor’s Office. This way they also avoid continuing to wait, because there may still be another year for there to be a final ruling.”

For their part, the lawyers of the other accused have asked that their clients testify once the evidence has concluded, so their testimony will be the last one heard in this Criminal Court. All of them have decided not to accept the agreement offered by the Prosecutor’s Office at the same time that, through their lawyers, they have denied the crimes they are accused of and have requested their free acquittal. In this sense, the lawyers have already made various documentary material available to the judge, such as photographs and videos, which would demonstrate their innocence.

The Prosecutor’s Office maintains that on September 25 around 500 people violently attacked the police force deployed in the Plaza de Neptuno, a few meters from the Congress of Deputies, knocking down the fences and throwing blunt objects at them. This “forced us to organize the deployment of various police intervention units to try to contain them,” the Public Ministry said in a statement. The police charges even reached the interior of the Atocha station.

From their perspective, there would have been various “coordinated” and “organized” groups, as well as other individuals, who dedicated themselves “to causing destruction on public roads, trying to surpass the established security cordons, throwing objects, not only against the security forces. security but against police vehicles, as well as on the road and public accesses, causing traffic interruptions.”

This version of events has been confirmed by the police officers who testified today, according to defense sources for the accused. “One of them has even said that he had never seen so much violence in a demonstration,” these sources added.

Likewise, the testimony carried out this Monday has served to hear, from one of these National Police agents, that they are the ones who decide which demonstrations to infiltrate in plain clothes and that a prior monitoring and investigation of the organizers without cover was carried out. judicial, “but once the report was made, they made it available to the courts,” the sources consulted have stressed.

The “repressive escalation” in the criminal process

In this sense, eight of the alleged organizers of the concentration were prosecuted by the National Court days before September 25. Elena Martínez, currently spokesperson for the Assembly of Support for the accused, was one of them. In her eyes, this judicial process means a “repressive escalation”, as she expressed before the start of the trial, which began when Cristina Cifuentes was in charge of the Madrid Government Delegation, in charge of planning the security device in calls of this type.

On September 25, 2012, more than 1,300 agents from 30 groups of Police Intervention Units (UIP) arrived in the capital out of the total of 52 that exist in Spain. According to the Government Delegation, 6,000 people demonstrated in Neptuno that day. “We were chased and identified. There was a police deployment like there has not been in other mobilizations,” Martínez stressed. Finally, she and her fellow defendants were acquitted of an alleged crime against high-ranking organizations of the nation. The order, issued by Judge Santiago Pedraz, stated that at no time was the normal functioning of the parliamentary session on the 25th altered.