Last October, a few days before his entry into prison was ordered for not attending the mandatory signature in Court, Rafael Amargo spoke with La Vanguardia. He was very angry, he felt like he was being hunted. He did not understand and does not understand that he is being prosecuted for a drug trafficking crime. Or rather, he suspects why he has been prosecuted even though he is innocent, as he has maintained from day one:
“There was nothing in my house. They have never released that record. They took out what was in someone else’s house and said ‘the band’ so that what is mine is yours and what is yours is mine. I don’t know what anyone has in their house but mine was very clean; That’s why they removed Luciana from the process. And we live under the same roof! But of course, I am Rafael Amargo. That is the answer”.
Throughout his long and successful career, Rafael Amargo has met many important people. To top level politicians. He called everyone who shared laughter and confidences, dinners and applause with him. Nobody helped him. He even wrote to a former president of the Government, obtaining the same silence in response. He was a stinker. “A strong police force came to my house because someone reported that there was a body. They searched the entire house and recommended that I report the person who gave that information. I did it and it was automatically archived.”
The Investigating Court denied him the use of his passport last year to travel abroad, maintaining, Amargo said, that it was a ruse to escape from Spain. The dancer complains that this mistrust prevented him from participating in the Istanbul Music and Dance Festival and Le Touquet-Paris-Plage, as well as participating in Barroz, a Bollywood film whose director, Mohanlal, is a legend. “I was going to play Vasco de Gama in the Portuguese conquest of southern India. For so many years I carved out that place to start a new career and my recycling… But I lost it,” Amargo lamented.
Today, Monday, April 8, the trial began against Rafael Amargo and his producer, Eduardo Santos, for whom the prosecution is asking for nine years, and Miguel Ángel Batista, the dancer’s partner, for whom he is requesting six. Marcos García Montes, Rafael Amargo’s lawyer, spoke to the press gathered at the doors of the Provincial Court of Madrid. This is how he faces this trial: “First, with the presumption of innocence. Secondly, the Police speak of an “organized group” but the prosecution has not filed an accusation in that sense. Thirdly, there is a lack of telephone interventions and records. And finally, we are going to ask that the accused testify last and we will raise the previous questions expressed in the defense brief.”
“We have provided evidence that shows that he had dependency problems. He is being treated in the Soto del Real Penitentiary Center as a drug addict and we prove that he was a drug addict to prove severe consumption of different products. He is perfectly fine now, he is very calm. The truth is that he expected to be provisionally released. The whole thing about him not showing up, etc., etc., was very confusing, but we have to look to the future. I think the matter is going to go well.”