Pablo Iglesias: There Is a Journalistic Mafia in Spain

The former leader of the Spanish left-wing Podemos party Pablo Iglesias last week denounced a smear campaign against him and his former party, in which he involved a well-known Spanish journalist for spreading a news item of an alleged payment made in his name by the president of Venezuela, Nicolás Maduro, in 2016, worth $272,000, knowing it to be false. This plot also involved high-level police officers. 

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In an exclusive interview with teleSUR's "Los Nadies" Iglesias tells Patricia Villegas about José Manuel Villarejo, a veteran police commissioner who worked for the Spanish Ministry of the Interior and has been linked to numerous cases of corruption and political espionage in Spain: "In that meeting, it turns out that one of the policemen, Villarejo is recording what is said in that meeting...Villarejo later went to jail and it seems that he has tried to take revenge on his former allies and has made those audios public, what do we hear in that conversation? We hear that a month before those elections, the director of the left-wing network says: I have information that is a lie, it is information that a friend of mine, who is the director of a right-wing tabloid, has given me, that says that Pablo Iglesias has an account in Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, in his mother's name, where Nicolas Maduro has paid him 200,000 dollars. I know that it is a lie, I know that this information is false, but I have told Eduardo Inda, the right-wing journalist who has given me this information, that although I know that it is a lie, I am going to give it on my channel, and of course, I am going to give the word to Pablo Iglesias"

Iglesias goes on to say that some Spanish media, including journalist Antonio García Ferreras, presenter and executive of the private television channel La Sexta "is run like a mafia and says that "To reveal that there is a journalistic mafia in Spain benefits the public. The main thing in order to correct a mafia scheme, so that criminal, political and, in this case, media responsibilities can be clarified, is that people know the truth. People have been able to see who Ferrera really is. I think it is good news for Spanish society and I think that the fact that there has been a movement of solidarity in Latin America, even five Latin American presidents have shown solidarity with us, reveals that the practice of media lawfare is something that affects democratic and left-wing political leaders in many countries. What Ferrera tried to do to us was trying to sell information that he knew was false, a hoax, a fake news, saying that I had an account in a tax haven where Nicolas Maduro put money in. they have done this to Petro, they have done it to Boric, they have done it to Cristina Fernandez de Kitchner, to Alberto Fernandez, They have done it to Lopez Obrador and They have done it to many leftist leaders"

When asked what options he has to counter fake news about him he said "We are considering legal action, but we want to be good strategists in this. We know that Ferreras and the mafia that surrounds him are very powerful, they have very important contacts in the judiciary. So, we want to design with the lawyers the legal strategies with a lot of intelligence and precision in order to use the most intelligent procedural means so that justice can be done

The processes of transformation, when the revolutionaries succeed, always unleash the most furious and aggressive reaction of the defenders of the status quo. What has happened with Ferreras, what has happened with Las Cloacas, is not an expression of their strength, it is an expression of their weakness and they will continue to fall" Iglesias concluded.