Prosecution investigates torture at Via Laietana police station during transition to democracy

Barcelona's public prosecution office has opened, for the first time, a criminal investigation into the alleged torture that took place at the city's Via Laietana police station during Spain's transition from dictatorship to democracy.

The investigation, with the support of the Spanish prosecution office's committee on human rights and democratic memory, focuses on acts allegedly perpetrated by members of the Political-Social Brigade secret police that existed during Franco's regime and up until 1978.

In November, Blanca Serra, the only surviving sister of two, publicly announced that she and her sister Eva were tortured between 1977 and 1982, with the last three incidents occuring after the Spanish Constitution was already in place.

Serra said that the fact that they were both "Catalan and women" meant that they were the "perfect target" for torture.

Investigators are now looking into the events after the victims, who were arrested four times, filed a complaint over several incidents of violent physical contact and mental harassment.

However, the investigation only concerns those events in February 1977, as the other events occurred outside of the timeframe covered by Spain's Democratic Memory Law. The sisters were arrested for political reasons, part of the systematic repression in place during the Franco dictatorship.

"All of these arrests took place at their home, which means that they were under constant surveillance," lawyer Sònia Olivella said back in November. They were then transferred to the police station at 43 Via Laietana street in Barcelona city center.

During her speech, Serra highlighted that she was torture even after dictator Francisco Franco was dead — he died on November 20, 1975. The arrests toke place under the antiterrorist law, which allowed for long detentions without any communication and without any legal guarantees. She was arrested three times on alleged charges of terrorism.

Serra was last arrested for "attacking the unity of the Spanish nation for holding a pro-independence poster." At the time, she was moved to Trinitat prison without any communication for a month to "avoid infecting other prisoners with such ideas."

"I tick the box on two key conditions: one, in favor of Catalonia's identity, and the second one, being a woman," she said.

The prosecutor's investigation is based on the democratic memory law, which obliges the office to "perform research that complies with the victim's rights to know the truth, justice, recover from the events, and guarantee it will not happen again. These are basic principles of international human rights law."