March 11 witnesses accuse ‘El Mundo’ of pressuring them to change testimony

According to a complaint filed with the High Court, the newspaper El Mundo tried to pressure two protected witnesses in the March 11 bombing case – both Romanian women – into changing their testimony regarding one of the men convicted of participating in the worst terrorist atrocity in Spanish history.

In return for withdrawing evidence against Jamal Zougam, sentenced to 42,917 years for being among the train bombers whose actions led to 192 deaths, the women were promised improvements in their work situations and even the halting of an eviction process against one of them.

The accusations are included in a complaint presented to the same criminal court that heard the March 11 trial in 2007, when Zougam was found guilty of carrying out the train bombings as part of a 10-man jihadist team, seven of whom had committed suicide in a massive explosion in their apartment in Leganés, outside Madrid, three weeks after the attacks.

The complaint, filed on March 20 by the lawyer Gonzalo Boye, includes written accounts by the two witnesses in which “they describe maneuvers designed to influence them to deny their own testimonies,” as well as “cast doubt on the impartiality shown at all times by the presiding judge [Javier Gomez Bermudez] who tried the case.”

He asked me how I could sleep at night knowing an innocent man was locked up"

In the complaint, the lawyer Boye indicates that the objective of the newspaper’s activities was to “generate sufficient elements of doubt in order to continue to question the solidity and conclusions of the [March 11] sentence.” Boye adds that it is public knowledge that certain sectors of the media “continue to question a sentence that has been confirmed, even by using techniques that have revealed the identity of protected witnesses, with the concomitant risk to their personal security, as well as, even more worryingly, using manipulative methods to call into question the impartiality of the person who presided over the court.”

In one of the written accounts, a witness describes how she was invited to visit the premises of El Mundo, was given Real Madrid shirts for her children, and offered help to change her job for a better one, and even find employment for her daughter when she left school – all in exchange for altering her testimony in which she told the court she had seen Zougam in one of the trains that was hit by a backpack bomb.

In imperfect Spanish, she writes that the journalists suggested to her that she “could have made a false declaration.” She says they fired questions at her, asking if the police had pressured her to testify against the terrorist; who had taken her to the Casa de Campo courtroom for the trial session; and whether Judge Bermudez had talked to her and pressured her to declare as she did. The journalists’ insinuations were, the witness writes, “insults upon insults and a pack of lies and false accusations,” adding that the interview ended when she broke down in tears and left. “In December the newspaper came out with this pack of lies and all these accusations against me.”

In her letter, the other witness explains she had confided in the journalist from El Mundo that she had a lot of personal problems, including the illness of her father and the fact that she was about to lose her apartment, adding that she did not want to talk to anyone about the March 11 case or have her words published in the press. Soon after, she continues, one of the reporters called her again and said they could help her with the apartment and get a job for her daughter.

“He asked me about Zugam [Jamal Zougam]. I was surprised. At first I didn’t get it, but later he told me that he knows I am a protected witness and how could I accuse Zugam, and whether I could sleep at night knowing that an innocent man was locked up. He was shouting that he is innocent and his mother said he was at home, and they believe he is innocent. I told him that I never told a lie."

The written account by the second witness continues: “He was very aggressive to try to intimidate me. He pressured me saying I saw [Zougam’s] photo in the newspaper, [asking] why did I declare so much later, that the police forced me, that it was my friend, who offered me papers, be they citizenship, papers for my daughter, or money. I answered that me and my husband got our papers on March 23, 2004; I don’t have citizenship nor I ever asked for it; my daughter’s papers were turned down and money I get from the group I belong to.”

The witness says the reporter told her that if she made a mistake, the newspaper would support her. “If I work with them, they will help me, but I have to do my part because they believe that Zugam is innocent. I tell him that if to get help with my apartment I have to say what they say, then don’t help me at all.”

Soon after, the second witness continues, a journalist she calls Joachim called to tell her that the problem with her apartment “has been sorted out. Casimiro [presumably El Mundo managing editor Casimiro García Abadillo] has talked to the manager in Barcelona [the mortgage she holds is with a Catalan savings bank] and I won’t be left bankrupt, but this is a deal between them that is illegal and nothing can be had in writing. But he did promise he would do what he said, otherwise Casimiro can do him a lot of harm in the newspaper.

“Then he said that it is sure that the PP will win the [2012] elections and the [March 11] case will be reopened, so it’s a good idea to admit I was wrong because they will help and always stand by me. I say that as far as I’m concerned, let them reopen it because I have nothing to hide and I did not lie.”

The March 11 trial court must now decide what to do with the complaint, although the most likely course of action would be to pass it on to the prosecution office for it to consider the case.

On his Twitter account, El Mundo’s García Abadillo yesterday criticized the story published in EL PAÍS, arguing that the complaint had not been officially accepted by the court and that the journalists at El Mundo had not been given a chance to give their side of the story.