The Madrid Court has accepted the appeal presented by the PSOE against the shelving of the proceedings opened in an ordinary court against Miguel Ángel Rodríguez, chief of staff of the Madrid president, for having disseminated data from two El País journalists who were preparing information related to Isabel Díaz Ayuso.
The head of the Investigative Court number 25 of Madrid refused to investigate Rodríguez, against the criteria of the Prosecutor’s Office, and closed the case without carrying out any proceedings. Now, the Fifth Section of the Provincial Court considers “it is pertinent to find out how, when and why the journalists’ data reached the defendant and whether the defendant actually disseminated it.”
In this sense, the Provincial Court of Madrid orders the judge to carry out “the procedures she deems appropriate” in the event of the possible commission of a crime of revelation of secrets by Miguel Ángel Rodríguez.
The magistrate understood in her archival order that the messages sent by Rodríguez to groups of journalists falsely accusing El País professionals of harassing residents of Ayuso did not incur a crime of revealing secrets by recording only their names and photograph.
Miguel Ángel Rodríguez was fully involved in the defense of Alberto González Amador, partner of Isabel Díaz Ayuso, after elDiario.es revealed that he had been reported for tax fraud. During those weeks, Rodríguez dedicated himself to attacking the media that reported on the case.
Ayuso’s chief of staff threatened elDiario.es by spreading the hoax that editors of this newspaper had tried to enter Ayuso’s house wearing hoods. On the other hand, he aired among journalists the names and photos of two reporters from The Country who were looking for information about the case in the vicinity of the home of the president and her partner. “They have been harassing the president’s neighbors, including underage girls, in harassment common in dictatorships,” he stated.
The PSOE was the first to denounce Miguel Ángel Rodríguez for revealing secrets, followed by a complaint filed by the newspaper and the two journalists. They all accused Rodríguez of having criminally exposed the reporters, adding that he had irregularly extracted this data from the Police or one of the agents guarding the regional president’s house. The Prosecutor’s Office requested that a case be opened and that a journalist from The Country testify, in addition to contributing Rodríguez’s message to the cause.
The response of the 25th investigative court of Madrid was to reject the opening of a case against the chief of staff of Isabel Díaz Ayuso. “The simple reference to the name and first surname of two professionals can in no way be included in the concept of secret, data or reserved information, since no impact on the private sphere of journalists has taken place with their mere nominal identification,” the judge argued to endorse Rodríguez’s actions.
Exposing the two reporters before other journalists accusing them of harassing little girls, the magistrate added, had “little or no relevance” in terms of their privacy. It was “its sole identification, without added references to intimate, personal or confidential areas, as it is inconsequential data.” Rodríguez’s accusation culminated with a photo of both journalists, something that is also not punishable according to this judge as it was taken “in public and in an attitude that is not compromising either for their private sphere or for the development of their privacy.”
Source: www.eldiario.es
