Prosecutors in favor of admitting Franco-era torture complaint

Prosecutors are in favor of admitting a complaint filed by trade unionist Carles Vallejo against six national police officers for crimes against humanity and torture. 

The complaint was filed a few months ago in a Barcelona court of inquiry and now the prosecutor's office and the specialized Human Rights and Democratic Memory unit of the State Attorney General's Office have supported its admission.

The complaint is directed against six Franco-era police officers for how they allegedly treated Vellejo at the Via Laietana police station in the center of the Catalan capital in the early 1970s while he was detained.

In a statement, prosecutors highlight the "duty" of the state to investigate possible human rights violations that occurred during the War Civil and Franco era as part of the Democratic Memory law.

"It is not appropriate to dismiss the complaint outright, but it is necessary to carry out an investigation of the facts and their context before taking a decision on the continuation of the procedure," the statement reads.

In November 2022, a dozen entities including Irídia and Òmnium filed a criminal complaint in the Vallejo case, weeks after the approval of the law of democratic memory.

"It is an essential step forward, the result of the tireless struggle of human rights organizations," Irídia considered.

Detention and torture

“I started running as fast as possible,” Vallejo recalled in an interview with Catalan News in November 2020. “As they forced me into the unmarked police car, they started to beat me, to humiliate me, to kick me and to hit me… that was all before arriving at the Via Laietana, where I was interrogated and tortured.”

After being tortured for 20 days straight at the police station, Vallejo was sent to the infamous La Model prison. Despite being sent to solitary confinement for a month for participating in a hunger strike with other political prisoners, he says being there was a relief because there was no “direct torture.”

Released 6 months later before being arrested and then released again, Vallejo decided to flee first to France and then to Italy rather than risk spending 20 years behind bars, as the prosecutor was requesting for him, and was only able to safely return a year after Franco’s death thanks to a partial amnesty. 

Yet Spain’s official policy of amnesia means nobody has ever been brought to justice for the war and dictatorship’s crimes—the man who tortured Carles, Genuino Navales, was even promoted during the transition to democracy, and was in charge of the Pope’s security during his visit to Spain in 1982 and safety at the FIFA World Cup held that same year.