Judge Manuel García Castellón, known for investigating some of the most high-profile cases of recent decades in Spain and now retired, has published the book “Talk to Know.” This journey through his career is also that journey … It serves as an excuse to talk to him about major sins, if you please.
-I forgive you for your sin.
-Well, I really like eating, I like Spanish food. But I have to take care of myself, because I’m getting older and also have diabetes. Will is the opposite of sin.
– But it is not a sin to forgive because of obligation, but rather because of the desire to do so.
-Well, the difference is that if I was eating two plates before, now I’m eating half. But I enjoy this medium.
-You just invented the concept of “half the fun.”
-It’s half a sin.
Which is more difficult for you to apologize to others?
-It’s not a great sin in itself, but I can’t bear to lie. I do not admit this except in cases of extreme necessity.
-Can you give me an example of this?
– When you cannot tell the truth to someone because you will hurt them too much or in cases of force majeure.
“I do not admit to lying except in cases of extreme necessity, when you cannot tell the truth to someone because it would hurt them too much or in cases of force majeure.”
-Is it also a sin that you do not allow yourself this?
– Yes, especially since we see that the example in Spain is lying to authority. I’m more careful. French philosopher Jean-François Revel said in his book “Useless Knowledge” that the first force that controls the world is lies.
-We see that today.
– What is really dangerous is that this is done from the circles of power. For me, let someone special do it, because I may not care.
-Have you ever lied because of force majeure? One I can count on?
-I said it at the time and I can say it to you now because I am not ashamed of it. On the occasion of a meeting we had in France, when I was a liaison judge there for an immediate exchange of information between the two countries; This means that when documents are confiscated from someone close to ETA or a leader in France, this information is immediately transmitted to the relevant Spanish authority, and exactly the same applies in reverse. This agreement was scheduled to be signed in Malaga in the last year of José María Aznar as head of government and Jean-Pierre Raffarin as French Prime Minister. To prepare for this meeting we had a meeting at the Judicial School in Bordeaux. We asked the French, because there were so frequent deaths, that we sign that document and they did not want to sign. I remembered that in 2000 the prefect of the region was murdered in Corsica and that the killer, Ivan Colonna, was the most wanted in France. And I deceived: I told them that we had news of the presence of this murderer on the Costa del Sol, and that if this agreement had not been signed, when he was arrested, which it would have been, they could not rely on the information. And they fell.
-It was about saving lives.
-actually. This is what I mean when I talk about lying out of absolute necessity. I did it and I will do it again.
-I think we’ll clear him of that.
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