The trial begins in Ourense for a plot of drug traffickers and police officers uncovered after a suspected suicide at the police station
This Monday, a week later than planned, the longest trial and with more defendants in recent years of the Provincial Court of Ourense, the 'Operation Zamburiña'. In it, nine alleged drug traffickers and four agents of the National Police force who allegedly collaborated with them in activities related to drug trafficking are accused. The defendants face penalties totaling 100 years in prison for alleged crimes against public health, failure to prosecute crimes, disclosure of secrets, or illegal possession of weapons attributed to varying degrees. The case was uncovered after the strange death at the police station of the agent who is related to the first complaint presented through an anonymous letter sent to Internal Affairs.
The expected start date was January 11, but one of the defendants reported that he had symptoms compatible with COVID-19 after having been in contact with a positive for coronavirus. The trial was delayed for this reason and finally begins today with the previous questions.
The Prosecutor's Office accuses the alleged traffickers of crimes of belonging to a criminal group and drug trafficking and requests penalties of up to 13 years. The four agents who will sit on the bench, all from the narcotics group of the Ourense police station, face various requests: three of them for crimes against public health, disclosure of secrets and omission of the duty to prosecute crimes with penalties of up to 7 years and 9 months in jail and the fourth, for revealing secrets, for which a fine of 5,400 euros is requested. All four could be disabled.
According to the judicial documentation, "it was revealed how several people were engaged in trafficking in the city of Ourense with narcotic substances, counting on the acquiescence and protection of various agents of the National Police."
The facts that are now being tried were uncovered by an anonymous letter that ended up in the hands of Internal Affairs. It is related to its elaboration of two twin police officers and an agent who appeared dead in 2016 after being shot inside the police station. The first police investigations quickly bet on the suicide thesis but the judge who instructed the case considered that it could be a murder and opened a case against the two police brothers for whom she issued a bail of 60,000 euros and order to appear daily in court .
The magistrate was not convinced that, minutes before his alleged suicide, the deceased agent had sent an email from his computer, incriminating himself as the author of anonymous offenses against some of his colleagues. Nor that next to the body were three of the six pistols that months before someone had stolen from the arsenal of the police station. The office where the shots took place was locked from the inside.
Throughout the sessions, a total of 109 witnesses are summoned to testify, between the proposals of the Public Ministry and those of the 11 defenses. The first to appear will be the person in charge of Internal Affairs who investigated the "Zamburiña Operation" in coordination with the Prosecutor's Office. In total there will be statements from 28 officials of the Department of Internal Affairs and police from different units of the Ourense police station and also of Pontevedra are summoned.
