The Madrid Prosecutor’s Office has received a communication from the president of the National Court, José Ramón Navarro, with the insults that the former leader of United We Can, Pablo Iglesias, uttered last April during an interview with magistrate Manuel García Castellón. Iglesias then called the instructor of the Dina case “mediocre” and “prevaricator.” These facts were brought to the attention of both the Prosecutor’s Office and the General Council of the Judiciary by the Court. Now, from the Prosecutor’s Office headed by Dolores Delgado, it has decided to refer the facts to the Madrid Prosecutor’s Office in case they could constitute a crime of libel or slander. According to a decree issued by the chief inspector of the State Attorney General’s Office, María Antonia Sanz, to which EL MUNDO has had access, in the interview with the former Vice President of the Government, “supposed statements by the magistrate to a journalist regarding that he was going to finish off Pablo Iglesias (…) said with an element of satisfaction and joy». Likewise, Iglesias is heard saying that he is “a mediocre judge” and alludes to the alternative that he can “go down in history as a prevaricator in the context of an alleged illegal judicial war against Podemos.”
In the prosecutor’s decree it is explained that “when determining which Prosecutor’s Office is territorially competent to promote the investigation, depending on the place of commission of a possible crime of libel or slander with publicity against a public official, the alternative of place where the offender has made such accusations or that of the place where the offended party is received”. On this point, the Public Ministry emphasizes that “the competence to investigate the facts will have to be recognized to the Provincial Prosecutor’s Office of Madrid, the town where the possibly offended person serves” and “where he has received the news possibly offensive to his honor as an official”.
Iglesias’ enmity with Judge García Castellón goes back a long way. Specifically, since he sent a statement against him to the Supreme Court for the Dina case. As a result of these events, the criticism and insults of the former Vice President of the Government to the togado have been continuous.
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