The statements before Judge María Eulalia Chanfreut, on May 10, of the four civil guards who survived the attack of the drug boat in the port of Barbate (Cádiz) last February in which agents Miguel Ángel González and David were murdered Pérez has provided almost no data on the alleged authorship of the double crime, but they did reveal the inferior means with which the members of the armed institute confronted the criminals. “The boat we were on was not prepared for that task in any way,” said one of the civil guards, with the initials OO, who also lamented that “the only protection” they had was their short weapons. [pistolas]. “We couldn’t even go with a long gun [subfusiles]”. One of his colleagues, identified as DA, pointed out in the same sense when he stated that he heard how the sergeant who sent them commented to one of his superiors that “with the type of small boat” with which they were going to jump into the water in the port, the drug boat “could pass over it,” according to the videos of the statements to which EL PAÍS has had access.
When the prosecution lawyers tried to delve into these issues, Judge Chanfreut prevented them from continuing to ask questions, considering that they were not aimed at clarifying the object of the investigation, the murder of the agents, but other issues. “I don’t see it coming. I left him at the beginning, but I think it’s enough,” said the instructor, interrupting one of the lawyers. The two majority professional associations among the agents, the Unified Association of the Civil Guard (AUGC) and Justice for the Civil Guard (Jucil), appearing in the case as an accusation, have filed complaints against commanders of the armed institute for having sent the six agents to confront the drug boats that had taken refuge that night in the port of Barbate with means, in their opinion, clearly insufficient. The Court of First Instance and Instruction number 1 of Barbate has opened investigation proceedings into these events.
The appearance of the four civil guards in court took place last week, just three months after the event that cost the lives of their two companions and when they were still suffering the physical and psychological consequences of it. In fact, before beginning to take statements, the judge asked the Prosecutor’s Office and the lawyers for the defense and accusations that the questions they asked the agents “be as brief as possible so that this act does not last excessively. that could cause greater harm, greater harm” to the victims. It was the judge herself who began the interrogations with questions always aimed at providing new information that would allow the identification of the perpetrators of the events, whose whereabouts were still unknown, after the report from the Civil Guard that exonerated the first six detainees of the crime. “Did you see the boat colliding with the patrol boat?” he asked the first agent, OO, a member of the Rapid Action Group (GAR). “The truth is they were all more or less the same size, dark, and I couldn’t describe any particularity to them,” responded the civil guard. Regarding whether he saw the number of crew members who were on the boat that attacked them, the agent responded: “In the boats that were around, I think they all had at least three people.”
The agent’s testimony turned to the conditions and means with which they went to try to intercept the six drug boats when the lawyers for the accusations began their question period. Then, the agent, who testified by videoconference, assured that “it was never clear” what his mission was. “We are told to put on a wetsuit [traje para actividades acuáticas] […] And once in the car [uno de sus superiores] He gives us two helmets to protect our heads, and tells us to do what we can,” he points out in his testimony in which he remembers that they only carried their pistols. When they asked him if the boat in which they jumped into the water was prepared to deal with the drug boats, the agent responded: “We [los agentes del GAR, especializados en actividades antiterroristas] We are also not prepared for this type of amphibious operations within a boat, and, of course, in such a small boat with those characteristics it was not the right one to do that type of task.”
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The second agent who testified, DA, who was the one wearing the Go-Pro (a waterproof camera that recorded the images that are key in the investigation) in his helmet, stressed the same direction. When describing when and from whom he received orders to go to the port of Barbate, the agent points out that the non-commissioned officer in command of his group received instructions by telephone from a lieutenant colonel: “I heard what the sergeant told him. [al otro mando]that with the type of small boat that we have that could pass over us [la narcolancha]”.
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