"We have never published a false information knowing that it was"

The director of the Sixth, Antonio García Ferreras, has denied having ever given false information "knowing it was." The journalist defended this Monday at the start of the Al Rojo Vivo program that when they learned of the information about an alleged Pablo Iglesias account in the Grenadines tax haven, the chain broke the news "quoting the media" and then called the former leader de Podemos to react live. “Of course it seemed strange and even crude to us, but the police said that he had that role and was investigating it. They lie when they say that we gave false information knowing that it was, ”he has said.

Chronology of a dirty war against Podemos

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Ferreras has reacted in this way to the publication on Sunday of a conversation recorded by former commissioner José Manuel Villarejo in which the director of the Sixth and the director of Atresmedia Mauricio Casals participate with him. In the audios that have emerged from that meeting, the origin of the false information published in various media outlets about an alleged bank account opened by Pablo Iglesias and to which the government of Nicolás Maduro would have transferred $272,000 is uncovered.

The information was published on May 6, 2016 by Ok Diario under the following headline 'The Maduro government paid Pablo Iglesias $272,000 in the Grenadines tax haven in 2014', and various media outlets, including La Sexta, published after the Spanish police were investigating that alleged bank transfer after receiving information from the DEA.

Ferreras has defended in his program that the audios of his meeting with Villarejo are "after" the publication of the news and that he met him to find out where the data came from. “We arrived later at Villarejo, who was pointed out that he could be behind that information. We had to ask one of the possible sources, indicated even from Podemos. It was the first meeting of the Sixth with the commissioner. He recorded the conversation as he has always done. He tells us that he was not and that the documents were held by the DAO”, he stated.

With the DAO he refers to the then Deputy Director of the Police, Eugenio Pino, whom in the conversations published by the Crónica Libre Villarejo media outlet he points out as the origin of the false information about the Iglesias account in Grenadines. After that first meeting –of the three that Ferreras had with Villarejo, according to what he has said–, the director of the Sixth transferred the content of the conversations with the former commissioner to Iglesias: “I transferred it personally to Iglesias. I told him that Villarejo himself had told us that he believed it was an authentic role”.

“We have had a very critical attitude in relation to the information about the PISA report or the relationship between ETA and Podemos. That there was an operation against Podemos? Come on, it's a truth like u temple. But what the Sixth did in real time was resist that operation. Although I'm sure we've learned. When we found out that account wasn't real, we said we shouldn't have given anything at all. But at that time we did not know it ”, Ferreras alleged on Monday.

Next, the director of the television network considered that although "those operations were a shame", now Podemos is doing "something very similar". “We have had continuous attacks that Podemos became what it was thanks to the Sixth. This television never entered the veto against Podemos or those campaigns against them. Then they accused us of creating Podemos. Now they accuse us of the opposite. It is delusional”, he has settled.