The death of the bear known by the name of Cachou (occurred in Les, Valle de Arán, on April 9, 2020) continues to accumulate elements of a thriller. It began with the official version that it was an accidental death after a fight, continued with criticism of the authorities’ explanations, and ended with the confirmation that it had been antifreeze poisoning.
Meanwhile, the investigations had been carried out in secret for eight months and included six arrests, house searches, computer intervention, wiretaps that uncovered a cocaine trafficking network (with Colombian drug traffickers included) and confirmed that several of those involved exchanged messages on social networks wishing the disappearance of the victim and his peers.
Finally, the judge in charge of the case considered two of the suspects investigated (defendants): one of whom had been a member of the autonomous government of Aran and the second was one of the agents in charge of protecting the victim…
All this plot takes place in a region with less than 10,000 inhabitants (many of the neighbors know each other and family ties are frequent), in the midst of a pandemic and with a judicial system that in this case cannot boast of being agile either. In fact, the third anniversary of the death of this bear with the name of some popular French sweets (Cachou pills, something like Juanola) is approaching and the case still does not have a trial date.
Moreover, when everything suggested that the judge currently in charge of the case was about to set the date of the oral hearing, the defenses of the two investigated have requested the annulment of the proceedings and free dismissal of their clients with some strange arguments ( by strange, special, rare or rarely seen).
The defenses of José Antonio Boya Quintana (former member of the Conselh Generau d’Aran) and Aran Medán (former member of the Environmental Agent body) sent two letters to the Viella Investigating Court on February 22 stating that They have “recently” learned that the judge who conducted the investigation of the case for the death of the bear Cachou, Cristina Marrero Pérez, currently works as a lawyer (she is a lawyer, she has ceased to be a judge) and last 19 In June, he published an opinion article and a podcast on his personal website in which reference is made to the Cachou case.
The lawyers for Boya and Medán, in this sense, affirm that the article by the former judge (and the podcast, which is a reading of the article with small additions), “expresses the clear personal, opinion and ideological tendency of the person in charge who directed the instruction of this cause and the personal bias in the approach of the instruction”. In the opinion of the defense lawyers, the article by the former judge “clearly manifests the lack of impartiality and objectivity with which the investigation began and with which the investigation continued.”
Among the arguments against the former judge, the lawyers for those investigated include the fact that in his article he defends the rights of animals, he indicates that in the Valle de Aran there are people who do not consider the protection of bears necessary and that he remembers that in Spain hunting has sometimes been not a livelihood but an expression of power.
Against the former judge, the lawyers of the investigated criticize the use of the expression of inclusive intention “todes” (everyone and all) used in his article and podcast.
In any case, the defenders of those investigated consider that all investigations into the Cachou case should be annulled and their clients exonerated because the person who investigated the case has written an opinion article in which tangential mention is made of this judicial process.
After knowing the presentation of these official letters of the lawyers of the defendants, the lawyers of several of the parties involved in the case have delivered to the judge of Viella writings in which the nullity of proceedings is considered unfounded “claimed by the defenders of the investigated.
“The statements and opinions expressed by the former instructor of this procedure have in no way undermined any fundamental right of those investigated,” nor “can they be considered or qualified as impartial and even less deserving of any reproach,” indicates the letter presented by the procedural representation of Ipcena (Institució de Ponent per a la Conservació i Estudi de la Natura) and Fapas (Fund for the Protection of Wild Animals).
The lawyers for these nature defense organizations recall that serious crimes such as the death of a specimen of an endangered species and the disclosure of secrets have been investigated in the Cachou case (supposedly, the agent involved would have provided data that made possible placement of poison), and they consider that the defenses of those investigated are now using the former judge’s article, “in a tortuous” and even “comical” way as an argument of the alleged impartiality in the procedure.
The Animalist Legal Action entity, for its part, states that it does not understand that the lawyers of those investigated accuse the former judge of being impartial for the fact that she refers to hunting in her article. “We do not know what criticism that the ex-judge makes of hunting has to do with the death of a protected animal [as Cachou was]. Any hunter in the world should be in favor of not killing a protected animal,” this statement indicates. animal entity in its letter to the judge.
Fapas, Ipcena and Acción Animalista agree to ask the judge who is currently in charge of the case to “proceed to follow and continue with the processing of this case, and after the appropriate legal procedures, order the opening of an oral trial.”
