The Basque journalist of Russian origin Pablo González celebrates two years locked up in a Polish prison today and, far from being clarified, his case has only become more tangled. The Polish Justice decided a few days ago to extend his provisional detention for the eighth time, which will last for at least three more months, and there is still no date for the trial. Meanwhile, a halo of mystery continues to surround a case in which there is little room for grays and in which two opposing positions coexist. On the one hand, some of his relatives defend that González is the victim of a judicial setup; In the other, serious information is repeatedly leaked that supports the accusations of the Polish Prosecutor’s Office and that reinforces the thesis that he is a Russian spy.
Two years after González’s arrest in Poland, near the border with Ukraine and a few days after the start of the war, only one point is clear: the detainee deserves all of his rights to be respected. His family, however, censures that he is not being like that. Oihana Goiriena, his wife and the mother of his three children, denounces that González is in a “very harsh situation and in almost inhuman conditions.”
“He spends 23 hours in his cell and only has one hour to go out to a small patio. He is incommunicado and in this time we have barely been able to speak with him. In these two years I have been able to visit him twice. His eldest son, 16 years old, has only seen him once; His other two children, ages 11 and 8, have not seen him,” Goiriena censures. Meanwhile, his lawyer in Spain, Gonzalo Boye, has denounced that in recent weeks “investigation proceedings have been carried out that should have been carried out in 2022, not now when it will be 2 years since his arrest.” Boye also points out that they fear that the provisional detention will be prolonged over time, “a common situation in Poland.”
This last issue is being widely debated in the country, especially since the arrival to power of the new prime minister, Donald Tusk, last December. Under the previous Executive, led by the conservative Mateusz Morawiecki, cases of preventive detention that were prolonged over time increased exponentially, and the new Minister of Justice, Adam Bodnar, has committed to putting a stop to this issue, something that could help to provide judicial channels for the case against Pablo González.
Meanwhile, the information that is known about the case comes mainly in the form of leaks, mainly to the newspaper Agentstvo (also known as Proekt), a Russian opposition media focused on investigative journalism and made up of professionals who have left the country. This medium has published that González traveled in 2017 on the same plane as the Russian intelligence officer Sergei Turbin and that his tickets were purchased jointly. In addition, Agentstvo reports that, at least since 2016, the journalist spied on and wrote reports for the Russian Government on people linked to the opposition in exile, such as Zhanna Nemtsova, daughter of the opposition politician Boris Nemtsov, murdered in 2015 on a bridge near the Kremlin.
According to the information published by Agentstvo, the Basque journalist managed to establish a friendly relationship with Nemtsova and, through her, established contacts with other opponents. Always according to this opposition media, González would have also carried out reports on the Russian-Ukrainian lawyer Ilya Novikov or the politician, journalist and filmmaker Vladímir Kará-Murzá. Asked by La Vanguardia, Zhanna Nemtsova has avoided commenting on the case and has indicated that both she and the people of the Boris Nemtsov Foundation are subject to a “judicial confidentiality” agreement.
This journalist’s contacts with the Foundation, in any case, were no secret and González himself published positive articles on his website about the work of this entity and even, in November 2017, a photograph with Zhanna Nemtsova and Olga Shorina , its directive. “Long live this initiative born from misfortune, but which does not promote hatred or revenge, but rather dialogue to improve all together. It sounds utopian, but someone is trying to do it, little by little and step by step,” he wrote in a post.
Was Pablo González’s work those days exclusively journalistic? Those around him maintain that it is, and denounce that the attitude of the Polish Government is due to a flight forward. They consider, basically, that two years ago he was arrested for his work as an alternative journalist, critical of the position of the European Union, “but also with Putin”, and for the confusion that was generated due to his Russian origin. .
The Government of Spain, meanwhile, maintains a stark distance from the case, although it indicates that González enjoys consular assistance. Minister José Manuel Albares will respond this Wednesday to a question from EH Bildu regarding the situation of the journalist and the measures that the Government has taken to guarantee respect for his rights and that he be tried as soon as possible. A fair trial will probably be the only way that can shed some light on the case.
