The secret history of the trade union of the allegations and the extortion

The Prosecution asks for three and a half years for Bernard and a year and ten months for Lopez NegreteJuicio oral to the leaders of Ausbanc and Hands Clean cri

The secret history of the trade union of the allegations and the extortion
The Prosecution asks for three and a half years for Bernard and a year and ten months for Lopez NegreteJuicio oral to the leaders of Ausbanc and Hands Clean criminal organization

The mercury was eleven degrees at seven in the morning of Friday, 15 April 2016, a prelude to a nice day of spring. Five agents of the Group II of the Section of Financial Fraud, belonging to the Brigade's Central Economic Crime and Fiscal, were stationed discreetly around an odd number of a privileged street in the Argüelles neighbourhood of up to 5,000 euros per square meter. Just two blocks away, on the paseo del Pintor Rosales, the trees in the Park of the West purifying the intense traffic of the area at the start of the rush hour. Only it had been fifteen minutes when the petite figure of Miguel Bernard peered through the portal of the estate, after descending in a lift from the elegant floor-which for years gave it to his father. Nervous, watchful, pitching to one side and to another.

Just 48 hours earlier, on Wednesday, the ABC newspaper had published that the National Audience researching your organization, Clean Hands, and to the association Ausbanc by blackmail and financial institutions and defendants in legal proceedings. He was afraid, by downloading in advance any blame on the broad back of Luis Pineda, the alleged caretaker of the financial institutions. "Luispi you know what you've done, I just...", he said. Despite this, Bernard knew that his detention was more than likely. Only a matter of time. For this reason he began to walk down the calle Quintana to take a taxi which will take you to see your trusted notary. is That is the hypothesis of the officers of the UDEF , who the night before, in the framework of the operation, Nelson had punctured an important call that made Virginia López Negrete.

The head of the Legal department of Clean Hands, he had insisted that the signing powers on behalf of a third party so that she could continue with the cause of Iñaki Urdangarin and the Infanta Cristina —Nóos, the train of their lives— in the case of a police operation, of which we warned.

—Miguel, look, I tell you. Tell Me, is it...? a couple of journalists who have contact with the UDEF, okay? —ripped Negrete between circumlocution.

—Yes, yes, " said Bernard.

—That the subject this of the National Audience, okay?, it can complicate. Not against me, but perhaps against you.

—Yes, yes.

—what is it Worth? So I've been thinking the following. It has occurred to me, Miguel, that these guys think they have it all ready, okay? Everything is prepared, this is my harvest, huh?, in the sense that you, with evidence or without evidence, or what they want, take it and you disabled, you are accused of, and you cripple, okay? Or you stop or I don't know what they can do to these guys, okay?

—Yes, they can come here, seize the computer and arrest me.

The lawyer, who had the conversation guionizada, aware that sure that he was being recorded, continues giving instructions to his theory boss :

—you are disabled as the president of the association, is it? And if you don't have things well in hand, you are going to appoint a judicial administrator, the first thing I would do is take me out of the way. Would to another lawyer that waiver of the indictment of the infanta and everything is in anything. For what I call, Miguel, is for tomorrow, but tomorrow, not past and such, tomorrow —insists up to four times— you must, I don't know how because I don't know how it works either the union or how to work your body organs, or how it works such —in its script tries to distance himself from the cause investigated—, I give you the idea, you need to leave tomorrow very well tied up that if you anything happens you're going to appoint a vice-president or whoever you want in such a way that if you something happens to that person take your place and has sufficient powers to keep me in this case, because I am the only insurer, that you know that I'm going to get to the end.

—Yes, of course, of course.

Negrete, who would kill for the case Nóos, could not bear the possibility of that, now, so close to the trial, out someone else who paraded in front of cameras in the Audience of Palma . The following dawn, the officers of the UDEF, in plain clothes, observed the movements of their prey and their features. They let him walk a few feet. There is No doubt, he is. Pretty dresses, as always, fixed. It is flirty. Wearing a jacket over navy blue buckled up to the middle of the chest. Lets see the top of a white shirt with blue stripes topped by a tie of a blue more eye-catching, vivid and brilliant. Dark pants and black shoes with a somewhat rough, as a cure. With his inseparable rimmed glasses in the air and gesture nervous, fidgets with the buttons of the coat. Walk light, short steps but agile. Despite its 74-year-old is in form, has always been careful and has lived comfortably, sitting, in offices, among papers. A lot of papers. At the height of the number 15 of the same street, addresses. One of the agents "pata negra" of the fight against economic corruption, shows the plaque:

—Michael Bernard, you are detained for belonging to a criminal organization, extortion and threats.

Decide not to handcuff him. It is a seventy-year-old in front of five young agents. There is No possibility of escape or the attack. is What is introduced in one of the car camouflaged, we involved the mobile phone and, quickly, move it away from the place . The judge of the National Audience Santiago Pedraz had ruled the day before that the records be produced simultaneously from 09:30. Both the headquarters of Clean Hands as that of Ausbanc are in the same area as the home of Bernard, so that the protocol police sent distanciarlo, that no one of the false association of users of banking or someone you know saw him by chance in a car surrounded by men with painted timbers. There, in the police vehicle, waiting for the rest of detention —up to a total of twelve—, you only match to repeat: "Are the sewers of the State, they are coming for me, I knew that already".

At 10:30, a part of the device of the Judicial Police going to his home. He opens the door of his wife, frightened. Simultaneously, Bernard is driven to the union's headquarters, at number 13 on calle Ferraz, where the keys of the office to the agents, after a paseíllo in the face of numerous cameras. Although with a face of circumstance and serious gesture to the couple that embarrassed, the hunter hunted is still relatively quiet. is The reason is that he fully trusted that it would remain on provisional release .

After registration, you are transferred to the premises of the Police in Moratalaz, where you "eat" the 72 hours of police detention before you get in a face-to-face with the judge. Refuses to testify before the Police, but you are asked to do a demonstration: "I Am a victim of a operation of the sewers of the State by taking out the shames of this country."

it is time to visit the Central Court of Instruction number 1. Hates his owner, Santiago Pedraz, which he called "Garzón 2" and referred to it as a "hijoputa" time and time again , but even so, they are sure to drop, "because I have not done anything". So much so that among the equipment that your family can provide through the Police, he is concerned about asking for a suit and a tie. In their plans was to give a press conference as to recover its freedom.

But Pedraz not shaking pulse: prison without the next to your buddy, and Pineda. That is not what I expected. The strength that he had in his detention evaporates as the air from a balloon without a knot. Bernard collapses.

Path of the famous penitentiary centre of Soto del Real have time to remember your whole life, think about how you enjoyed each time that a judge sent to that same prison to some in the media —as the ill-fated Miguel Blesa or Gerardo Díaz Ferrán— and you begin to test your character.

Date Of Update: 15 September 2019, 16:00