Two years in prison for an AALOG officer from Valladolid for refusing to go on a mission in Türkiye

The Supreme Court has sentenced a captain of the AALOG 61 of Valladolid, based at the El Empecinado Base in Santovenia de Pisuerga, to two years in prison that he must serve in a military prison, for refusing to go on a mission in Türkiyea crime of “disobedience” punishable in article 44 of the Military Penal Code. His destination was going to be far from the sensitive areas of the conflict, since he was going to an office position, to work on economic matters.

The events occurred in the fall of 2021, when the replacement of the soldier who was deployed in the Ottoman country in the position of head of the Economic-Administrative Section (SEA) in Operation Support to Turkey (A/T) was imminent. The plan was for this captain from Valladolid, with ten years of service in AALOG 61, to take over.

The order that he received on October 1, 2021 was that, to prepare for replacement, he had to join refresher sessions in A Coruña in four days that were going to be held between October 4 and 8 of that year.

Echills

But it was receiving the phone call and practically panicking, according to the factual background of the recent ruling 36/2024 of the Military Chamber of the Supreme Court to which this newspaper has had access. Among the excuses that the officer gave for not going to Türkiye were tachycardia and chills..

He also alleged that he had a cut on the footwhich lacked a passportwhich I was not vaccinated against Covid and that I wasn’t planning to do it. But he cited more drawbacks: the lack of preparation for the designated position and the his wife’s pregnancy status. As the process was delayed for a few days, after superiors dismissed his allegations, he also added two other reasons: he stated that he did not feel qualified for the mission and that, if he carried it out, it could affect his assets.

Fed up with the string of excuses, the commanders decided to remove the captain from the mission – authorized by the Chief of the General Staff of the Land Force himself – and to urgently send another soldier to Turkey who was not planned and who, meekly, agreed to travel to the destination without protest.

And also initiate criminal proceedings against the Army Quartermaster captain (Cinet), since, in addition to what was mentioned, this officer even informed a commander that he was not going to show up for the days prior to the deployment in A Coruña because “he was on sick leave.”

And it was not true, states the Supreme Court ruling. “It was a sick leave situation that the captain had not been granted since there is no record of the sick leave medical report for that day nor that it was validated by the competent command.”

The case went to trial and the officer was convicted this year (January 24, 2024) to two years in prison in a sentence handed down by the Fourth Territorial Military Court, to which the Territorial Military Court 42 based in Valladolid depends. The Military Court imposed two years in prison on him as the author responsible for the consummated crime of “disobedience”, provided for and punishable in article 44 of the Military Penal Code, with the legal accessories of military suspension from employment during the time of the sentence.

Not satisfied, the captain filed an appeal before the Military Chamber of the Supreme Court, the body that handed down a sentence on October 8 to ratify the Military Court’s ruling on the aforementioned sentence of two years in prison.

In his appeal to the Supreme Court, he alleged four reasons: violation of the right to presumption of innocence, enshrined in article 24.2 of the Constitution, and erroneous assessment of the documentary evidence in the proceedings;

Thirdly, the improper application of article 44 of the Military Penal Code. As a fourth allegation, he stated that, on a subsidiary basis, the “lack of proportionality” of the sentence imposed should be considered. The Togada Prosecutor’s Office requested the dismissal of the appeal.

All of his allegations, however, have been rejected by the Supreme Court, since this court gives credibility to what the captain’s superiors declared, such as the case of the lieutenant colonel who informed him that his incorporation into the Turkish mission “was an order.” in writing reflected in the Official Messaging System of the Land Force Headquarters Headquarters, for which he had to appear in Coruña on October 4, 2021 to carry out the days prior to deployment and that a military passport was requested for the journey “, to which the appellant responded “that he was not going to go and that he would do everything possible not to go.”

“No commitment”

The Supreme Court also endorses the seriousness of disobedience. «The Support for Türkiye mission is framed in Spain’s commitment to its NATO allies on issues of security, neighborhood and solidarity. This is a mission of great strategic and operational value for the international community. It demonstrates Spain’s commitment to global security and well-being and strengthens the image of our country on the international stage. Therefore, failure to comply with said order reveals little or no commitment by the captain to the promotion of peace and human rights on a global level.

All this without forgetting that a teammate suddenly suffered the consequences of the captain’s refusal. «These events have had great significance in the AALOG 61 since they have been known by various personnel of the same. They have also had repercussions outside the unit, given that, by refusing to go to the mission, another Quartermaster officer had to be appointed with the significance that this entails.

Three cases of judicial investigation

The case of Capital convicted of disobedience is the third investigated by military courts on the same unit, AALOG 61.

The Territorial Military Prosecutor’s Office IV, based in A Coruña, began the investigation in February 2023 into an alleged case of embezzlement of public funds committed by four AALOG commanders for using public funds for personal benefit. The amount of money diverted between the years 2021 and 2022, the date of the alleged corruption, would reach 183,000 euros and for their distraction, apparently, they had the complicity of businessmen from Valladolid and Burgos in the delivery of false invoices for unrelated services. lent. The practice was to atomize the amounts into less than a thousand euros.

The Valladolid Prosecutor’s Office was the first body to reach this anonymous file, prepared by an “invisible” vigilante that the sources consulted attribute to someone “from within the AALOG 61”, since he knew and provided very detailed data on the commanders. those he accuses, in the same way that has been done with supposedly incriminating emails.

Some e-mails, in addition, with official domains of the El Empecinado Base, which gives an idea of ​​how the three commanders now in the spotlight could have lowered their guard, thinking, perhaps, that their ‘businesses’ could never be traced. . The case is in the hands of the Central Military Court after having started in the Fourth Territorial Court because some investigated have jobs from commander up. The last case investigated by the Togado Court 42 of Valladolid is the alleged diversion of funds by the hands of the AALOG, which supposedly used a sum of 1,920 euros in theory to pay for a day of training for 200 soldiers in September 2023 and which ended supposedly being used to finance a banquet for a few commanders.