Cassandra case

The Caso Cassandra (Cassandra Case) is a court case in Spain against Cassandra Vera Paz (3 November 1995), who was criminally charged in 2016, in relation to several tweets she posted on the subject of Carrero Blanco. In 2017 the Audiencia Nacional (National Court) sentenced her to a year in prison and seven years of inhabilitación absoluta (ban from holding government jobs and receiving government grants such as scholarships), but the sentence was annulled in 2018 by the Supreme Court.

History

Operación Araña (Operation Spider)

Between 2013 and 2016, using her account @kira_95, Cassandra published a series of tweets about the assassination by the ETA on 20 December 1973 of the Prime Minister of Spain (under Francisco Franco) Luis Carrero Blanco.[1] Following an operation conducted by the Information Service of the Guardia Civil, as part of Operation Araña, Cassandra was charged, in connection with posting the tweets, for injury to victims of terrorism.[2][3] According to the testimony of Cassandra Vera, on 13 April 2016 she was summoned by the Guardia Civil to make a statement in relation to a robbery that she had reported a year before, but after arriving at the police station she was informed that she was being criminally charged herself, and her mobile phone was seized.

Audiencia Nacional (National Court) trial

The thirteen tweets mentioned in the charges against Cassandra were as follows:[4]

  • "ETA impulsó una política contra los coches oficiales combinada con un programa espacial." ("The ETA promoted a policy against official cars, combined with a space program.")
  • "Película: 'A tres metros sobre el cielo'. Producción: ETA films. Director: Argala. Protagonista: Carrero Blanco. Género: Carrera espacial." ("Film: 'Three Metres Over the Sky' [Spanish title of the film Three Steps Above Heaven]. Production Company: ETA films. Director: Argala. Protagonist: Carrero Blanco. Genre: Space race.")
  • "Kissinger le regaló a Carrero Blanco un trozo de la luna, ETA le pagó el viaje a ella." ("Kissinger gave Carrero Blanco a piece of the moon, the ETA paid for the journey to it.")
  • "Si hacer chistes de Carrero Blanco es enaltecimiento del terrorismo..." ("If making jokes about Carrero Blanco is praising terrorism...")
  • "Perdone usted, @GcekaElectronic, un respeto por el gran Carrero, la estación internacional de la ETA puso todo su esfuerzo." ("Excuse me, @GcekaElectronic, a little respect for the Great Carrero, the ETA's international space station did all it could.")
  • "¿Ya no puedo hacer chistes de Carrero Blanco?" ("I can no longer make jokes about Carrero Blanco?")
  • "Elecciones el día del aniversario del viaje espacial de Carrero Blanco. Interesante." ("Elections on the anniversary of Carrero Blanco's space flight. Interesting.")
  • "Spiderman VS Carrero Blanco."
  • "¿Carrero Blanco también regresó al futuro con su coche? #RegresoAlFuturo." ("Did Carrero Blanco also go back to the future in his car? #BackToTheFuture.")
  • "Feliz 20 de diciembre." ("Happy December 20th.") (With a photo of the attack on Carrero Blanco.)
  • "20D." (With a photo montage of the lunar surface, an astronaut with Carrero Blanco's face, and the Franco-era Spanish flag.)
  • "URSS VS SPAIN. URSS vs SPAIN. URSS Yuri Gagarin VS SPAIN Carrero Blanco."
  • "Contigo quiero volar / para poder verte desde el cielo / en busca de lo imposible / que se escapa entre mis dedos." ("With you I want to fly / to be able to see you from the sky / in search of the impossible / that slips through my fingers.") (With an image that depicts the upward flight of Carrero Blanco's vehicle.)

On September 13th she appeared before the investigating judge with her court-appointed lawyer, who she later fired because he wanted to base her defence on mental derangement caused by the condition of being transgender.[5] Cassandra, working with the law office BGD Abogados, decided to base her defence on freedom of expression and the humorous tone of the tweets.[1]

On 29 March 2017, she was found guilty by the Audiencia Nacional, which ruled that the tweets published between 2013 and 2016 constituted contempt, dishonour and mockery towards victims of terrorism and their families.[6] Cassandra received support in defence of freedom of expression, including a letter from Carrero Blanco's granddaughter.[7] Nonetheless, the tribunal, made up of Juan Francisco Martel Rivero (speaker), Teresa Palacios and Carmen Paloma González, sentenced her to one year in prison and seven years inhabilitación absoluta (ban from holding government jobs and receiving government grants such as scholarships), as well as payment of court costs and the removal of the tweets, for disrespect to victims and praising terrorism.[6][8][9][10][11] The prosecutor Pedro Martínez Torrijos asked for two years and six months of prison, three years' probation, and eight years and six months of inhabilitación.[10][12] The sentence caught the attention of international news media, and political parties such as Izquierda Unida and Podemos reacted against it.[13][14] Izquierda Unida retweeted Cassandra's tweets from its official Twitter account, @iunida.[15]

Supreme court hearing

The sentence was appealed to the Supreme Court, providing the following reasons for which it should be annulled:

  • First: for violation of article 20 of the Spanish Constitution, of article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and of article 11 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union, wherein the freedom of speech is enshrined.
  • Second: for violation of article 24.2 of the Spanish Constitution, the presumption of innocence, by not having required sufficient proof of the charges.
  • Third: for miscarriage of justice by the application of article 578 of the Penal Code (law against praising terrorism and humiliation of victims of terrorism, introduced by the Ley Orgánica 7/2000, of December 22) without sufficient reason.
  • Fourth: for miscarriage of justice, based on article 579bis of the Penal Code, by neglecting the personal circumstances, the context and the content typical of Twitter.
  • Fifth: for miscarriage of justice by undue application of article 14.3 of the Penal Code, by failure to apply invincible error and the doctrine of vincible error.
  • Sixth: for miscarriage of justice by error manifest in the appraisal of the evidence presented by the defence.

The fiscalía (public prosecutor) challenged all of these points. However on 26 February 2018, the Supreme Court considered the appeal and annulled the Audiencia Nacional's sentence, rejecting the Second reason, but accepting the Third, and considering it unnecessary to examine the remaining reasons.[16] It concluded that the tweets "do not contain any bitter comment against the victim of the attack nor do they express wounding, cutting or insulting phrases or comments against his person or any concrete aspect of his public or private life. The only subject of the joke or sarcasm is the manner in which the attack was carried out, placing special emphasis, as in almost all preceding jokes, on the fact, now hackneyed and worn, that the car reached a great altitude", and that the subject of the joke "had taken place 44 years ago, more than enough time to consider it a historical event whose humorous treatment cannot have the same significance as that of a recent event", therefore "even though the conduct of the accused is reproachable from a social and even moral perspective, in making fun of a grave human tragedy attributed to unjustifiable terrorist acts, it does not appear that we are presented with a case that requires a response from the penal system, and such a response is not deemed here to be an appropriate and proportionate reaction".[17] The speaker was the magistrate Alberto Jorge Barreiro, who heard the case together with magistrates Andrés Martínez Arrieta, Miguel Colmenero Menéndez de Luarca, Antonio del Moral García and Ana María Ferrer García.[18]

See also

References

  1. 1 2 Munárriz, Ángel. "Cassandra Vera: "La Fiscalía quiere coartar la libertad de expresión, pero no tiene apoyo social"". infoLibre.es (in Spanish). Retrieved 6 March 2018.
  2. ↑ López-Fonseca, Óscar (31 March 2017). "'Operación Araña': dos absoluciones, 42 condenas y 33 casos pendientes". EL PAÍS (in Spanish). Retrieved 17 January 2018.
  3. ↑ Cuartopoder (3 April 2017). "Cassandra y los chistes que son ETA". Cuartopoder (in Spanish). Retrieved 6 March 2018.
  4. ↑ "Estos son los tuits sobre Carrero Blanco por los que la Audiencia Nacional condenó a prisión a Cassandra Vera". eldiario.es (in Spanish). Retrieved 8 March 2018.
  5. ↑ "La tuitera imputada renuncia a su abogado de oficio por ser "admirador de Carrero Blanco"". El Español (in Spanish). Retrieved 6 March 2018.
  6. 1 2 "Un año de prisión para Cassandra por mofarse de Carrero Blanco". El Huffington Post (in Spanish). 29 March 2017. Retrieved 16 January 2018.
  7. ↑ "Caso Cassandra: un ridículo jurídico nacional (que se convertirá en internacional). Blogs de Homepage". El Confidencial (in Spanish). Retrieved 17 January 2018.
  8. ↑ Pérez, Fernando J. (30 March 2017). "La Audiencia Nacional condena a Cassandra Vera, la tuitera que hizo chistes de la muerte de Carrero Blanco". EL PAÍS (in Spanish). Retrieved 17 January 2018.
  9. ↑ Heredia, Ana María Valero. "El 'caso Cassandra', la gota que colma el vaso". infoLibre.es (in Spanish). Retrieved 17 January 2018.
  10. 1 2 Press, Europa (4 April 2017). "Cassandra no es la única: estos 5 casos de chistes en redes sociales también han llegado a juicio en España". europapress.es (in Spanish). Retrieved 17 January 2018.
  11. ↑ "Foro Política, historia y ciencia: Condena de un año de prisión para la tuitera que se mofó de Carrero Blanco en 3DJuegos". 3DJuegos. Retrieved 17 January 2018.
  12. ↑ "La cara B de las acusaciones de los fiscales por enaltecimiento en redes sociales" (in Spanish). Retrieved 17 January 2018.
  13. ↑ "Así ve la prensa internacional la condena a Cassandra por sus tuits sobre Carrero Blanco". eldiario.es (in Spanish). Retrieved 17 January 2018.
  14. ↑ "Franco se ha reencarnado en Audiencia Nacional. Blogs de España is not Spain". El Confidencial (in Spanish). Retrieved 17 January 2018.
  15. ↑ "IU desafía a la Audiencia Nacional difundiendo los tuits por los que han condenado a Cassandra". eldiario.es (in Spanish). Retrieved 6 March 2018.
  16. ↑ Pérez, Fernando J. (1 March 2018). "El Supremo absuelve a Cassandra Vera por sus tuits con chistes sobre Carrero Blanco". El País. Retrieved 6 March 2018.
  17. ↑ ALBERTO GUMERSINDO JORGE BARREIRO (26 February 2018). "RECURSO CASACION/979/2017" (PDF) (in Spanish). Madrid: Tribunal Supremo. Sala de lo Penal.
  18. ↑ "El Supremo absuelve a Cassandra Vera por sus «chistes de mal gusto» sobre Carrero Blanco". El Comercio (in Spanish). 1 March 2018. Retrieved 6 March 2018.
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