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The four agents of the National Police of Mérida arrested in the operation against drug trafficking called 'Minuro-Peces' carried out this week in Extremadura have been transferred this afternoon from the Badajoz prison - where they entered on Friday night - to the Penitentiary Center Madrid VII, commonly known as the Estremera prison. All of them have been transferred in a Civil Guard van.

Although it had been speculated throughout the day that the police were going to be sent to the prison of Seville 1 because it was closer to Extremadura, finally the Ministry of the Interior has chosen to enter prison in the capital of Spain. The one in Estremera, like the one in Seville 1, has a special module separate from the rest of the inmates for all those members of the State Security Forces and Bodies who are detained, thus preventing them from mixing with other types of prisoners. also in the case that they are in preventive detention pending the development of the judicial proceedings that are being followed by the Court No. 3 of Mérida and that of Torrevieja (Alicante), where an agent of the Civil Guard is also detained in relation to this operation.

A fifth police officer was released on charges last Friday after giving testimony to the questions of his lawyer, but not to those of the judge and the prosecutor. He was the newest of the narcotics group having joined this team last February. The judge released him but withdrew his passport and forced him to appear every fifteen days in court. The day after the first arrests, another agent, a policewoman, attached to the Merida Police Station but not to the Narcotics Group, was arrested, but she was released on charges.

The other four agents who made up the group -including the chief inspector-, to whom their lawyers recommended not to testify because the case was under investigation and did not know the judicial and police actions, entered provisional prison and without bail. The case, which is under summary secrecy, is followed, among others, for crimes against public health, belonging to a criminal organization and omission of the duty to prosecute a crime, according to the Superior Court of Justice of Extremadura.

During the weekend and until this Monday around 4:30 p.m., the four agents had remained in the entrance area of ​​the Badajoz prison, following the 10-day anti-covid protocol in this module like any prisoner who enters the jail. They have had several interviews with doctors and psychologists, according to their lawyers, and they are "in good spirits, despite the circumstances," as the lawyer of one of the agents, Roberto Lorenzo, has told EL MUNDO. The lawyer has also confirmed that both he and the other defenses are preparing to file an appeal against the provisional arrest order ordered by the investigating judge, although he acknowledges that until the summary secrecy is lifted and the proceedings are known "he will be complicated "That this decision can be changed by not knowing exactly the reasons for the crimes they are accused of, and the evidence for them, although at all times he is convinced of the "innocence" of the agents.

At the moment, the detainees are classified as "second-degree preventive prisoners at the disposal of the judge," the lawyer clarified, "and as soon as possible that we have copies of the entire process, because now the folder is empty, we can prepare defenses and present that appeal. " Therefore, they will also request that the secrecy of the proceedings be lifted.

Roberto Lorenzo has indicated that there is no fear that the agents would be mixed with other inmates but that there is a protocol of action in these cases that is implemented for all those members of the State Security Forces and Bodies when they are detained and sent to prison, even if it is provisional.

"It is the usual regulatory process that has been followed", and that for the moment it has not been able to include any communication from the agents to their lawyers in these first days that they have been in prison in Badajoz: "The calls were not authorized", has specified.

The agents' relocation to Madrid instead of Seville means that travel distance almost doubles for both lawyers and family members when visits are allowed.

There are also at least four other investigated who have been provisionally released with charges.

All of them have had their passports withdrawn and they are obliged to appear in court every 15 days.

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