Today is the day: Gustavo González and Diego Arrabal, photojournalists with renowned careers and powerful exclusives with their signature, sit on the bench accused by the presenter Mariló Montero of a crime of revealing secrets: during the Easter holidays of 2015 it was photographed without her consent in a hotel complex in Bora Bora and in part of that set of photos she appears ‘topless’. The complainant adds that it would have happened in a private space, so we would be facing a violation of her right to honor, privacy and her own image. On this trip, Montero is not accompanied by the prosecutor’s office, which requests the free acquittal of the accused and refers any dispute to civil proceedings.
This morning, at the Provincial Court of Barcelona, ??the plaintiff, the defendants and the director of the magazine Lecturas will testify, to whom the material was sent by the commercial director of the agency but who never bought it and, therefore, It was not published.
As this newspaper has learned from direct sources, the photographers do not even understand why this matter has gone so far, since a year ago the Provincial Court of Madrid overturned the sentence by which a court of First Instance sentenced them to pay 340,000 euros for the capture of those images: the large figure was the largest set by a judge in our country in this area.
In that case, directors of other magazines testified that they never saw the report and González and Arrabal also defend themselves with solid arguments: they did not take the photos, the space was private and that report was neither sold nor ever saw the light of day.
In their favor, they argue that they were not prosecuted for similar photos taken months earlier in the Maldives, where the presenter was seen with her family. “What’s more, she herself broadcast that report in the Maldives on her TVE program with total self-confidence. The director of Lecturas declared in court that the plaintiff did not object to its publication,” these sources explain to La Vanguardia, about a report that was the cover of the magazine.
“Here the capture of photos is judged, in which Diego Arrabal and Gustavo González have not participated. At that time they ran an agency and different free-lance photographers offered them reports, they were not even hired people. Even though there is documentary evidence as clear as hotel invoices for whoever took the photos, let’s put it this way, the signatories have not been called to testify. “It is unheard of,” these sources declare. The defendant maintains that in Bora Bora, like in Spain, there are no private beaches. Thus, we would be faced with three phases of denial of any hint of a crime in this case: the accused are not the authors, the photos were taken in a public space and that material was neither purchased nor published.
“Freedom of the press is at stake right now,” they explain to La Vanguardia. “In this process, it is not judged whether those photos were taken illegitimately but rather the fact of capture itself,” according to what was seen in the previous paragraph. “If there is a conviction, it would not attack the mainstream press but journalism in general.” The same sources add that, in any case, the plaintiff is a figure of public interest and at the peak of her popularity at that time: “There are dozens of reports about that person in magazines, consented to by her. It doesn’t make any sense when it comes to unpublished photos in a public place.”