Emilio Hellín, murderer of Yolanda González, and other human rights violators are not paying for their crimes. Their impunity slaps society in the face, protected by the reactionary regime of 1978. It is necessary to build a strong popular movement to investigate and punish those materially and politically responsible for crimes against humanity.
By Ruben Tzanoff
Yolanda González is the name of the 19-year-old comrade who in 1980 was kidnapped, tortured and murdered in Madrid by a commando of the fascist Spanish Basque Battalion. Yolanda was a militant of the Spanish Socialist Workers Party (PST), an organization which we claim as part of our militant tradition. Her murder remains unpunished.
A murderer on the loose
Emilio Hellín is the name of the murderer and leader of the fascist Battalion. All the murderers remain unpunished. It is worth remembering what Asier González, Yolanda’s brother, said about Hellín: “…he only spent 12 years in prison out of the 43 to which he was sentenced, despite two frustrated escape attempts and a third one for which he managed to escape to Paraguay, until his extradition was requested”. Also what happened in 2013 when they learned that “the Spanish Ministry of Interior had been paying Hellín’s services for years to train State Security Forces and Corps in forensic techniques of espionage, computer tracking and collaborating in judicialized cases…”
Justice! A claim that is still alive
We always remember Yolanda. Not only as a tribute but also as an action of claim. On this occasion, we stand in solidarity with the family of Yolanda, who has denounced a very serious fact: the hiring of Emilio Hellín by the defense of the former president of the Parliament, Laura Borràs (JxCAT). It is outrageous that “to prepare an expert report in his defense” they have turned to the murderer who now calls himself Luis Enrique Hellíng. This fact expresses the contempt with which bourgeois politicians like Borrás take the cause for the punishment of the murderers of Yolanda, who since 2002 is officially recognized as a victim of terrorism, although the correct formulation should be “State terrorism”.
Expert witness for corrupt politicians, a thriving business
Hellin created Net Computer Forensies and New Tecnology Forensics, SL, now reconverted into a study center. From these companies he provides his services as a “computer forensic expert”. His ties with the State Security Forces and Corps allowed him to increase his nefarious client portfolio. He collaborated with the Police, the Civil Guard and other regional police forces, received public contracts from the Government as an advisor to the security forces on IT, terrorism and crime and instructed members of the Ertzaintza. In addition to Borràs, his clients included former judge Salvador Alba, Cristina Cifuentes, former president of the Community of Madrid, and other leaders of the PP of Valencia. In all cases he acted as an expert witness for politicians accused of corruption. This is the “employment” that the regime protects and at the same time uses, commanded by the one who shot Yolanda Gonzalez twice in the head.
Faced with the same outrage, the same struggle
The outrage of Yolanda’s relatives, friends and comrades is the same as that felt by those of Gustau Muñoz, a 16-year-old militant who was murdered in Barcelona, by police repression on the Diada of September 11, 1978. His murderers remain unpunished. The complicity of the Spanish justice system is so brutal that his family had to file a case through the “Argentine Complaint “. And the struggle against the impunity of Martin Villa continues.
Another case to mention is that of Arturo Ruiz García, a student and left-wing militant murdered in Madrid on January 23, 1977, during a pro-amnesty demonstration. He was killed by a far-right-wing member of the “Guerrilleros de Cristo Rey” parapolice group that collaborated with the State. The cases of Arturo and Gustau are among a much longer list of victims, for whom justice is demanded from different instances, as the Colectivo por los Olvidados de la Transición (Collective for the Forgotten of the Transition) does. Nor can we fail to mention the families who claim for the so-called “stolen babies” law, blocked in the legislature by the PSOE with different excuses.
Unity and mobilization against impunity
The murderers of Franco’s regime and of the transition are protected by the institutionalism of the regime of 1978 and by the subsequent governments after Franco’s death, headed by the PP and the PSOE. The laws passed in different administrations have not been sufficient, nor efficient as a tool to investigate and punish the murders of Francoism and the transition. The advice to “Turn the page” is a trap to continue guaranteeing the triumph of injustice. Therefore, it will not solve the democratic debt that exists with the victims and with society as a whole. The transparent investigation and the punishment of the culprits, those who committed crimes against humanity, will only come with the mobilization and organization of the workers and the people, together with the human rights organizations. It is necessary to set up a great popular movement that actively mobilizes to settle scores with the past, to guarantee democratic rights in the present and to prevent obscurantism from taking over the future.
