The Supreme Court’s Criminal Chamber has upheld the sentence imposed on a Civil Guard officer based in Cadiz who, in 2011, alerted smugglers working in Santa Cruz de Tenerife that they were under surveillance by members of this security force.
Due to significant mitigating circumstances of undue delays, the punishment is limited to a fine of €400, disqualification from holding public office for a period of three months, and the payment of legal expenses.
The high court’s ruling specifies that on the 20th of September 2021, while the defendant was carrying out his duties as a civil guard in the tax section of the port of Cadiz, around 3 p.m., he accessed the internal database available to him due to his position.
The officer checked the license plates of several vehicles, one of which was disguised as a monitoring and control device involved in an operation in Santa Cruz de Tenerife targeting individuals engaged in the illegal purchase, distribution, and sale of tobacco between the Tenerife capital and Seville.
Subsequent investigation confirmed that the vehicle belonged to the State security forces, and the information was then relayed by the accused to those involved in the operation, thus validating their suspicions of being surveilled.
By the end of 2019, the defendants had been convicted of smuggling, criminal conspiracy, and the crime of disclosing secrets by the Seville Provincial Court, with the Civil Guard also held accountable for the latter offence and receiving the same sentence, now affirmed by the Supreme Court.
During the trial, the Civil Guard officer claimed that he accessed the database, meant for official use, for personal reasons, citing an alleged accident involving his wife on the same day.
He vehemently denied providing smugglers with the license plate number of the trailing vehicle to confirm its affiliation with the Civil Guard and prompt them to desist from their illicit activities.
The Court considered internal investigations and testimonies of two agents who attested that the convicted individual did not possess the information on which license plate to check, that the portal consulted did not yield such details, and reviewed copious documentation submitted to substantiate his innocence.
Nonetheless, the Supreme Court deems it established that there was a request for information from the smugglers to the agent through an unaccredited channel to corroborate their suspicion of being monitored while operating in Santa Cruz de Tenerife.
Evidence shows that the Civil Guard checked three license plates on entry from Cadiz and is accused of conducting the so-called “diabolical test”, where the burden of proving innocence falls on the defence.
The Supreme Court finds compelling evidence linking the now convicted individual to the intercepted conversation of the smugglers and deems the explanation that the consultation stemmed from his wife’s unrecorded accident as “implausible”.
