The Central Military Investigating Judge No. 2 has filed the preliminary proceedings of the criminal complaint filed by the sergeant of the Seprona Detachment in Laznarote, Gloria Moreno, against the colonel of the Civil Guard, Ricardo Arranz (retired since 2019), captain Germán García and agent Miguel Ángel Padial, whom she accused of a series of events constituting alleged abuse of authority after Moreno led the operation carried out on September 8, 2015 against the poaching of shearwaters on the islet of Alegranza, in the Chinijo Archipelago.
As a result of that intervention, Moreno was disciplined up to eight times due to complaints from individuals, animal protection groups and reports from psychologists of the Civil Guard Headquarters. All the files ended without sanction.
The Provincial Court of Las Palmas ratified last April the sentence imposed by the Criminal Court No. 1 of Arrecife on ten people who were caught in an asadero of Cory's shearwaters in Alegranza, a protected species. All of them were convicted of a crime against protected species of wild fauna and each was fined 8,640 euros.
In the order agreeing to the filing of the case against two superiors and a colleague of Moreno, dated May 18, the judge assures that none of the facts on which the sergeant based her complaint constitute "abuse of authority or any other crime."
Moreno's defense considered that the facts against her clients constitute a crime of abuse of authority in relation to a crime of administrative prevarication and a second crime of abuse of authority in its modality of professional harassment.
In the document presented by the sergeant's lawyer, María Jesús Díaz Veiga, it is stated that the facts, "with the necessary cooperation of the guard Miguel Ángel Padial in the crime of harassment [...], show that the defendants were persecuting the sergeant despite her diligent actions, her justified investigations in pursuit of the crimes attributed to her competence, her actions in compliance with the law, through multiple acts of harassment in the form of repeated files, tending to place her in a permanent situation of vulnerability. And all this began as a result of the successful operation she led on the islet of Alegranza on September 8, 2015."
However, in the order, which is not final and against which an appeal can be filed within five days from its notification to the parties, it is assured in relation to the crime of abuse of authority in relation to an alleged crime of prevarication, that in the action of Colonel Arranz "it is not appreciated in any way that his action is contrary to law, because regardless of the fate or final result reached by the files, none of these actions is contrary to law, that is, illegal, because all of them have scrupulously conformed to the provisions of the legal system, especially in Organic Law 12/2007, of October 22, on the disciplinary regime of the Civil Guard, having always acted, the indicated colonel in accordance with what was reported and in the exercise of the powers and duties imposed on him by the aforementioned Organic Law."
Colonel Arranz, according to the aforementioned order, "only acted in the professional and strict exercise of his powers, processing complaints that came to him, sanctioning the facts he considered susceptible to minor infractions and raising a disciplinary report when he noticed facts that he considered could constitute a serious or very serious offense."
Nor does it follow that the facts attributed to Colonel Arranz, Captain García and Guard Padial, the military investigating judge points out, "were due to a prior conspiracy of the three to harm Sergeant Moreno, whether it was for her intervention in the case of the shearwaters of Alegranza, or for another reason."
The judge argues his reasoning as follows: "From the opening of the first file on the islet of Alegranza referred to in the complaint, September 8, 2015, until the opening of the first disciplinary file for a minor offense against Sergeant Moreno, August 18, 2017, there is a lapse of time long enough to rationally rule out a connection between both events and for the same reason with the following disciplinary actions." Secondly, because "seven of the disciplinary actions originate in complaints or denunciations prior to the intervention of Colonel Arranz, and in the one originating with the colonel, he limited himself to giving a report for what he considered a serious offense," an action that has already been the subject of individualized examination by the Central Military Investigating Court No. 1, ruling out its illegality."
On the other hand, in relation to the possible crime of abuse of authority in its modality of professional harassment, the military investigating judge points out that "the reported facts do not focus on the fact that the defendants have threatened, coerced, insulted, slandered or seriously attacked the privacy of the complainant."
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