• Basque Country The lawyer of the models denounces the "absolute nonsense" of sentencing only 28 years to Cabezudo
  • Case Kote Cabezudo Izaskun, the model who stood up to the photographer of the jet: "I was a child and he knew all the important people of Donosti"

"You have no fucking idea what you're getting into." Melchor Miralles began to investigate the Kote Cabezudo case with a call to a friend, a former police officer in the Basque Country, and the first advice he found was to leave him: "The GAL, state terrorism, were a joke compared to this. And I warn you that this is a matter for which there are people who kill."

He did not desist: "If a journalist has knowledge of a matter like this, he is obliged to tell it."

The name Kote Cabezudo may not tell you anything, and that's what this story is about. He is, however, one of the biggest sex criminals in the history of Spain.

Finally, after a long and tortuous road, Miralles premieres on Netflix this Friday, May 26, 'In the name of them', the documentary series that returns to the case of this photographer from San Sebastian who, for 30 years, abused and raped his young models, often minors, and produced and distributed child pornography.

It is not, however, the first time that a platform announces this series. Disney+ already promoted it in November 2022 as its own production. But to everyone's surprise, on the day of its launch there was only silence.

Someone of high rank told them: 'You can't release it'

Melchor Miralles

"There is no precedent in the world," says Miralles, co-executive producer of 'In the Name of Them', "someone of high rank told them: 'You can't release it.' For the victims it was terrible."

Three one-hour chapters trace the chilling story of the victims of José Juan 'Kote' Cabezudo Zabala, their mechanisms of control over them and the coercion they suffered later, during the judicial investigation, when they had the courage to denounce him.

Miralles warns the viewer: "You will witness something that no one could imagine in the Spain of the XXI century. The catastrophe, the indignity of justice, the revictimization to which these women have been subjected in the courts of San Sebastián is unsuspecting. They say it themselves: 'We have felt more violated by the judge than by Kote Cabezudo.'"

Still from the series 'In the name of them'. NETFLIX

Disney+ was just one of the stones in the way of an investigation destined to disappear.

"Jesús Cintora prevented me from talking about Kote Cabezudo on his show and, when I did, he fired me. Risto [Mejide] did not allow me either," denounces the journalist, who attributes the general silence to an extremely effective protection network woven by the photographer thanks to the compromising images he has of influential people: "He says it himself, he has material from police, military, ertzainas, lawyers, journalists, judges ... He's got a lot of people caught."

Still from the series 'In the name of them'. NETFLIX

'In the name of them' covers the nine years of very long instruction that concluded last year with the conviction of Kote Cabezudo to 28 years and two months in prison for crimes of sexual assault, sexual abuse of minors, preparation and dissemination of child pornography and several crimes of fraud between 1992 and 2013, a ruling upheld this spring by the Supreme Court.

The admission of Kote Cabezudo in the Martutene prison does not close, for Miralles, the last page of this twisted story: "If all those who are part of his protection structure think that with his conviction, the case is over, let them lose all hope. Because this is just beginning."

  • Paedophilia
  • Justice
  • Disney
  • Netflix

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