For 6 years, we have been working on a proposal to reform the protocol for the protection of the identity of protected witnesses and special victims.
This protocol will be proposed and addressed to the regulatory body: the Coordinating Prosecutor’s Office for Witness Protection, to inform them of the situation of vulnerability and risk to which the figure of the protected witness is subjected, and which they face from the moment of the judicial process and after its conclusion.
Despite protected witness status being granted, even if it is indefinite, as regulated by Organic Law 19/1994, a concise law of barely 4 articles, let’s examine the nuances.
- Their identity is not always protected with a new identity; measures are left to the judge.
- If the defense requested it to avoid defenselessness, they could reveal the identity of the protected witness.
- They are made to testify in court instead of providing pre-constituted evidence.
This is definitely not the United States, nor Argentina, nor Australia, nor Ireland, nor Italy… but there is a solution.
I refer to the facts:
“As he is a protected witness, please…”
An unusual and unexplained event. The most persecuted witness of 11-M, Lavandera, was treated as a Protected Witness in the Audiencia Nacional, after having suffered everything.
PALOP CASE Protected witness, doorman of a hostess club.
The Defense rejects the non-disclosure of his identity. He is directly described as a former hitman with convictions in Africa and elsewhere. He was offered to perpetrate the crime. The testimony in court is with an undistorted voice, and he is forced to give too many details.
PROTECTED WITNESS IN DOUBLE HOMICIDE CASE IN Guernica, Vizcaya
I know Graña, “colleague” Villa, army officer. 14/09/2001. “Colleague” Graña, army ATS, is found dead. He lived in Munguía. Tense situation, he had a wife and an extramarital affair. Jose Antonio Ayuna (army officer) knows that colleague Graña disagrees, and, intoxicated in the officers’ bar hallway, uncomfortably threatens him and puts a gun to his head. Tense situation with the officer, and once Graña died, the GC was informed.
- Voice is not distorted
- Only protected by a screen
- Entry and exit from the room are not protected.
GROUP OF PROTECTED WITNESSES – CURSACH CASE – Tito’s, Mallorca
Accused threatens protected witness No. 31, offered €110,000 to change testimony. Local police officers in Palma receive harassment, threats. Witnesses No. 29 and 31 are beaten, “either leave Mallorca or you die, you son of a bitch.”
The judge tells the press he will no longer have more beatings or threats on his conscience. The judge who must carry a gun. 1 local police officer fires into the air when they enter his house. Politicians, judges, and prosecutors (receive threats and surveillance, pressure, bribes). There are protected witnesses who are protected minors in this case.
GROUP OF WITNESSES RECANT – CASUALS CASE
The three protected witnesses in the case against the Casuals, radical FC Barcelona fans, have recanted in court the incriminating versions previously maintained and have only substantiated an isolated incident, involving an assault on auctioneers that implicates the main defendant.
WHAT MEASURES ARE FORESEEN
The formal status of a protected witness requires the following conditions to be met:
- To be a witness in a criminal proceeding.
- Existence of a serious danger to the person, liberty, or property of the individual seeking protection, their spouse or person with whom they are linked by an analogous affective relationship, or their ascendants, descendants, or siblings.
(AND PRIVACY? AND SLANDER? AND HARASSMENT?)
- Reasoned resolution by the Investigating Judge agreeing to declare protected witness status and adopt protection measures.
They must be a witness in a criminal case. And what happens when they are forced to be a party in a civil case?
HOW TO GUARANTEE THEIR ANONYMITY (OFFLINE… OBVIOUSLY)
4. “Their name, surname, address, place of work, and profession, or any other data that serves to identify them, shall not be recorded in the proceedings, and a number or any other code may be used for identification.
5. Any procedure that prevents normal visual identification when they appear for any proceeding must be used.
6. Care must be taken to prevent witnesses from being photographed or their image captured by any other means, and photographic, cinematographic, videographic, or any other type of material must be seized from anyone who violates this prohibition. Said material will be returned to its owner once it has been verified that there are no traces of shots in which the witnesses appear in such a way that they could be identified.
7. They may be transported to judicial premises, to the place where any proceeding is to be carried out, or to their home in official vehicles, and may have police custody in the aforementioned places.
8. The headquarters of the intervening judicial body will be designated as the address for citations and notifications, which will be discreetly forwarded to the recipient.
9. Designation of police protection (Escort).
10. They will be provided with new identity documents.
11. They will also be provided with financial means to change their residence or place of work.
WHAT PROBLEMS DO WE ENCOUNTER?
- Publications on the aggressors’ own websites
- They require a court order
- Of the delivery of an ID card
- Of a management cost
- Google suggest
- Did you mean
- Relationship of 2 images
- Relationship of the friends list (you can “change or modify your life” but what about your environment?
- Removal of internet content:
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- On numerous occasions, the removal and deletion of private and personal information of the protected witness on the Internet has been requested, which represents a problem when making such a request to the author of the publications, as they sometimes coincide with the author of the threats.
- Loss of control over personal and private information
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- The trusted professional responsible for digital identity protection very seriously warns of the loss of control over the protected witness’s personal and private information, alerting to
- Alleged illicit access recently made to the witness’s email account,
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- Of the copying and manipulation of personal, family, and professional information contained in said account and the current threat being dumped from an online space to upload personal and private information to which it supposedly had access by accessing the witness’s personal and professional email.
- Loss of control after illicit data access
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- It is reiterated that there is no control over said information or over who is behind the illicit act, and the witness is defenseless against this and future digital and physical attacks, as the aggressor has already threatened.
WHAT SUPPORT SERVICES DO WE OFFER THEM?
- MONITORING AND DIGITAL SURVEILLANCE OF THE PROTECTED WITNESS AND THEIR FAMILY to anticipate and manage any type of crisis 24/7.
- GENERATION OF CONTENT ABOUT THE NEW IDENTITY
- DELETION, DE-INDEXING, POSITIONING, AND DE-POSITIONING OF CONTENT FROM THE PREVIOUS IDENTITY
- FORENSIC EXPERTISE in situations of attack on their digital identity: Calculation of reputational and image loss.
