The Provincial Court of Las Palmas has confirmed another conviction for journalist Francisco Chavanel and the producer of his radio program for attacking the honor of prosecutor Ignacio Stampa, whom he has been attacking for years with "false" information to try to discredit the investigation of the Unión case and the Stratvs case. In addition, it has extended the conviction to the editor of the newspaper where he also published articles, Canarias 7, which had been acquitted in the first instance.
"We disagree with the acquittal of the newspaper's editor because we understand that in essence we are facing the same conduct," the new ruling states, dated March 14. In this regard, it recalls that the first ruling only convicted the journalist and the producer of his radio program but acquitted Canarias 7, understanding that in this case they were opinion articles for which only the author should be held responsible. However, the Court concludes that this distinction is not "justified", since both on the radio and in his articles "predominated" the opinion and the "evaluative element", but based on "unverified and misrepresented facts", "whose lack of veracity has been proven".
In this regard, the ruling recalls that a journalist "is within his right to criticize" the investigation of a case, but "what freedom of expression does not protect is that such criticism is based on false facts", as happened in this case. "A fierce criticism is made of the actions of the Public Prosecutor's representative in two criminal proceedings of great public notoriety, in which corruption of public officials is investigated and affect people of business relevance on the island," the ruling states, adding that this criticism was "accompanied and based on the narration of facts that are neither true, nor were they subject to a minimum objective and diligent verification".
Other convictions that also included Lancelot
It should be remembered that this is the third conviction against the same journalist for using defamation to try to sow doubts about the investigation of some of the main corruption cases opened in Lanzarote. So far, Chavanel has also been convicted of attacking the honor of the former president of the PIL, Antonio Hernández, whom he has repeatedly referred to as a "protected witness", and of Judge César Romero Pamparacuatro, who initiated the investigation of the Unión case. In the case of Pamparacuatro, he also directed his lawsuit against Lancelot, which belongs to one of the defendants in Unión and Stratvs, Juan Francisco Rosa, and who also paid Chavanel for his interventions against judges, prosecutors and complainants, and defending the investigated.
That first ruling that also convicted Lancelot was already ratified by the Provincial Court, which even raised the compensation that the Court had set. As for Stampa, his lawsuit did not include Juan Francisco Rosa's media outlet, although it had also disseminated defamatory articles against him, as the first instance ruling considered proven.
In that ruling, the judge pointed out that the prosecutor's reason for not suing this media outlet as well may have been to "avoid any kind of suspicion that could give rise to new criticisms, even if unfounded, about his own actions in particular and those of the Prosecutor's Office in general, even if this means postponing or relegating the defense of his own interests". And it is that at that time Stampa, who currently works in the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office in Madrid, was still in charge of cases against Juan Francisco Rosa, such as the Stratvs case.
Compensation, costs and obligation to publish the ruling
The Court's ruling, against which an appeal to the Supreme Court is still possible, states that it "shares the very detailed assessment of the evidence made by the court of first instance, the selection and transcription of the most significant and relevant passages" -with Chavanel's attacks on Stampa on the radio and in newspaper articles- and "the analysis of their lack of veracity". Thus, it confirms "the existence of a violation of the right to honor, correctly and motivatedly appreciated", although it partially upholds both Ignacio Stampa's appeal and that of the defendants, in the first case to also include the conviction of Canarias 7 and in the second to reduce the compensation that they must pay to the prosecutor, which goes from 50,000 to 25,000 euros.
"It is very difficult to obtain an exact measurement of the dissemination and monitoring of specific radio programs or of internet access to journalistic articles," the ruling states, adding that "the reiteration of the articles aggravates the damage to a certain extent, but does not multiply it", because what it did was repeat the same false facts over and over again. Thus, it points out that "the principle of equality and legal certainty advise applying valuations that respect the precedents in similar cases of violation of the right to honor" and, after citing some examples, concludes that the sum of 25,000 euros as compensation is "proportionate and respectful of the aforementioned precedents", plus the corresponding legal interest from the time the lawsuit was filed. It should be remembered that in the Pamparacuatro case, the compensation set by another chamber of the Court amounted to a total of 162,000 euros, adding the conviction imposed on each of the media outlets.
As for the compensation to the prosecutor, Chavanel and the two convicted media outlets will have to respond jointly and severally for that sum, and they will also have to pay the costs of the first instance. In addition, they must publish the heading and the ruling of the judgment in Canarias 7 and read it on Chavanel's radio program, El Espejo Canario, "for five consecutive days".
A book about Dimas
In addition to having charged Juan Francisco Rosa's company, the summary of the Unión case itself also highlighted the relationship of this journalist with the main defendant in that case, Dimas Martín, and with the already convicted Francisco Rodríguez Batllori. In one of the letters they exchanged when Dimas was in prison, Batllori told him about a book that they apparently intended Chavanel to write - "he is waiting for what you say and to set up the best possible operation to see you", Batllori told Dimas-, and that they intended the then Councilor of Finance of Arrecife, José Miguel Rodríguez, to "take care of".
"Tell me what I should do about it," José Miguel Rodríguez asked Dimas Martín in another letter, who from prison gave instructions to the councilor of payments that he should make with public money from the City Council for things that had nothing to do with the Consistory. "It is a book that we are going to write that can be very interesting, I will talk to you about that more calmly," Dimas replied.
It so happens that the arguments that Chavanel has used for years to criticize the investigation of the Unión case are identical to those used by several defendants in the case and in particular by Dimas himself, who returned to put them on the table in the trial that was seen for sentencing last week, and in which he again presented himself as a victim of a kind of plot.
In some cases, Francisco Chavanel relied on what both he and a collaborator of his program, Valentín Auyanet, claimed were "rumors", as the ruling points out, which concludes that it has been shown that these rumors were "unfounded" and that they echoed them without "the minimum diligent verification" and without even citing any source.
In addition to launching serious falsehoods that affected the private sphere of the prosecutor, Chavanel went so far as to argue that Ignacio Stampa had been relieved in the Unión case due to alleged "errors" or "negligence" in the investigation, when the reality is that what the Public Prosecutor's Office did was simply incorporate another prosecutor into the case due to the magnitude that the case acquired. In fact, the Fiscal Council itself issued a statement in its day asking for the attacks on Stampa to cease, whose work was later recognized with his transfer to the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office in Madrid, where he currently works and where he is in charge of some of the main cases open in Spain, such as the Villarejo case.
