Prosecutor Ignacio Stampa, known for his role in the Villarejo case or for uncovering the biggest corruption cases in Lanzarote, spoke last week on Radio Lanzarote - Onda Cero on the occasion of his return to the island to present his book, The Plot. The truth of the case of prosecutor Stampa, which was exhibited at the UNED headquarters in Arrecife.
"I have written the book first of all to have an inner peace that I had been demanding of myself for quite some time and also for my family, to clarify everything that happened and not to feel that I am hiding what those people who have done all this to me want to hide", Ignacio Stampa begins in the radio interview.
Stampa's decision to dedicate himself to justice was vocational. In Madrid he prepared his opposition to become a prosecutor. Then, once he passed, his first destination was the Las Palmas Prosecutor's Office, where he worked for more than a decade. During that time, his name became part of the history of Lanzarote.
During his years in the Canary Islands, Ignacio Stampa promoted the investigation of the biggest corruption cases that Lanzarote has suffered to this day. The Jable, Unión, Montecarlo, Stratvs and Yate cases bear his seal. Now, he has revealed that these investigations were also the reason why he began to receive pressure. Such is the case that the Supreme Court condemned some media outlets for attacking his right to honor in the publication of untrue information, which tried to remove him from the cases.
"Everyone, beyond prosecutors or civil servants, we are all workers and something similar can happen to all of us. To tell what happened in the Anti-Corruption Office, I had to go back to what happened in Lanzarote", he began in the morning show Buenos días, Lanzarote.
"The demons" that followed him from Lanzarote to Madrid
After twelve years working in the Las Palmas Prosecutor's Office and eight of them dedicated to anti-corruption work, a young Ignacio Stampa received an offer from the Public Prosecutor's Office in Anti-Corruption, in Madrid. One of the greatest achievements of a prosecutor's career, working in a place where the most important cases in the country are investigated.
"They put me to do my job and I start doing it", he explains about his first steps in the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office. First he arrived and, shortly after, prosecutor Miguel Serrano arrived, with whom he would work side by side to discover the truth about the case that was investigating the former commissioner of the National Police José Villarejo and the former number two of the Police Eugenio Pino, the Kitchen case.
"I think we made a very good team", Stampa attests, who recalled how he investigated together with the Internal Affairs Unit and the inspector who was in charge of the investigation. During that period, they worked "like little ants" adding steps to the investigation, until their names came to the fore.
"Miguel and I were not known to anyone until almost 40 months after we started investigating", Stampa relates. The first years of the investigation, which led to one of the biggest cases of political, business and police corruption in Spain, the public pressure fell on the investigating judge. Meanwhile, the prosecutors received internal pressure, away from the media spotlight.
"We found it very comfortable that everything referred to the investigating judge. When we become known is when hostilities are unleashed", explains Ignacio Stampa, about the Kitchen case.
When it became publicly known that prosecutor Miguel Serrano and he were investigating former commissioner Villarejo and the former number two of the Police, the public lynching began and "a farce" was created to end the case's investigation team. "Villarejo is a unique character. I have learned to interpret him backwards, every time he says something I think the opposite", he recalls about his time investigating the former commissioner.
"Through news and information manipulation, it caught on a lot and served as justifications for an alibi to be taken advantage of by the people who decided", he reveals on the air. Prosecutor Ignacio Stampa left the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office after his commission of services was not renewed and after a smear campaign in the media, which unleashed the already archived Stampa case.
Although he does not reveal all the names of those who have persecuted him, Stampa narrates that the former Minister of Justice and former State Attorney General Dolores Delgado created "an arbitrary investigation" against him that prevented him from keeping his position in the Anti-Corruption Office, as reflected in detail in The Plot.
"A State Attorney General as was her case, considered herself absolutely immune in everything that concerns me. They never imagined that I would rebel, because I have been in lawsuits with them all these years and no one has found out. And yes, she did it taking advantage of her position and with abuse of power and with deviation of power, that is what we think", confesses Ignacio Stampa.
To these pressures from the State Attorney General's Office, which he says should not be confused with the work of a prosecutor, Ignacio Stampa adds figures of power who try to boycott him through the media. In his book, he narrates the pressures he faced since he began to uncover the corruption cases in Lanzarote and that he assures, followed him during his time in the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office in Madrid.
"The job is what exposes one. I never chose the corruption jobs I had in Lanzarote, but things happen and it is normal for people to want to know", Stampa narrates.
The former prosecutor of Las Palmas assures that those who started a smear campaign against him in Lanzarote, also persecuted him to the Anti-Corruption Office. "Those people do not forget about me and reappear again in Madrid and the Canarian connection is very clear. What happened to me there, coincidence or not, the media attacks come from a journalist sent from the Canary Islands", he defends during his intervention in the morning show Buenos días, Lanzarote.
Ignacio Stampa spent years silent facing the demons that have tormented him before taking the step and speaking publicly about what happened. About the reprisals he may face with the publication of The Plot, he is sure that "the book reveals absolutely nothing that was not already published in the process", while about his story he explains "the point of view of an investigated citizen".
Currently, Ignacio Stampa works in the Madrid Prosecutor's Office, away from the focus of the Anti-Corruption Office. "The Anti-Corruption Office was a very monetary, very powerful, very cold matter. Now I have the opportunity that I had in Lanzarote to do jury trials, homicide trials and be closer to the citizen", he explains.
"I see no reason or other horizon and I do not consider anything else" than to continue being a prosecutor, Stampa confesses. In this line, he highlights that his book is a way to bring the work of the Prosecutor's Office closer to the citizens and "break a lance for the Spanish prosecutors". To conclude, Stampa assures that "the moral of the book is that there are many things that do not happen by chance and I wanted to play a little with that", he said during his narration. The Plot has been very well received by the public and in just 20 days he had already announced its second edition.
