• Follow-up Rubiales spied with detectives on the head of Investigation of EL MUNDO to discover the source of the Supercopa Files

  • Football The Anti-Corruption Prosecutor interrogates the uncle and former chief of staff of Luis Rubiales

  • Analysis The keys to deciphering what Rubiales says and is silent: ethical nuances, evasions and conflicts of interest

EL MUNDO will take the Royal Spanish Football Federation (RFEF) to court for having ordered follow-ups with detectives on a deputy director of EL MUNDO with the aim of identifying his sources of information.

This newspaper is going to denounce the alleged commission of a crime of revealing secrets as this operation affected the fundamental right to information, image and privacy of both the journalist and the people who were recorded meeting with him and who had no relationship with him. body that directs Spanish football.

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Editorial.

Rubiales must resign from his position without delay

Rubiales must resign from his position without delay

The investigative agency Inner Risk followed Esteban Urreiztieta through Madrid on April 29 for several hours and illegally photographed and videotaped a meeting he had with Luisa Ortega, a former Venezuelan attorney general who had taken refuge in Spain after denouncing President Nicolás Maduro before the International Criminal Court.

He was also the subject of similar surveillance on May 5, when he was followed for at least an hour and a half.

Obviously, the purpose of the monitoring commissioned by the entity chaired by Rubiales was not the former Venezuelan high official, but to document whether the journalist met with sources linked to the RFEF to obtain information in the midst of the scandal over the so-called Super Cup Files, revealed by El Confidencial.

The RFEF had deployed a monitoring device around Juan Rubiales, former chief of staff and uncle of President Luis Rubiales.

The detectives recorded an appointment of the journalist that same morning with the still employee of the RFEF and, later, they decided to focus the follow-ups on Urreiztieta individually until registering all his movements through Madrid for almost four hours in a row.

Despite finding that the journalist subsequently met with a person completely unrelated to the RFEF, the investigators hired by Rubiales prepared an extensive report that included dozens of photographs of the journalist driving around Madrid on a motorcycle and recorded images of the aforementioned meeting with the former Venezuelan prosecutor inside a cafeteria on Luchana street through the use of a hidden camera.

This documentation has been provided by the RFEFal Court of Instruction number 3 of Madrid within the framework of a lawsuit that has been filed against Juan Rubiales, whom it accuses of leaking confidential information from the organization.

As part of this follow-up, the detectives verified the license plate of the journalist's motorcycle and identified whether he was talking on the phone on the street or changing his location.

The Private Security Law, which regulates the activity of detectives in Spain, establishes in its article 49.2 that "only information directly related to the object and purpose of the contracted investigation will be included in the investigation report."

That is to say, "without including in it references, information or data that may have been found out regarding the client or the subject under investigation".

Likewise, in its article 48.3 it establishes the prohibition of using “material or technical means in such a way that they violate the secrecy of communications or data protection”.

The RFEF has reacted through a statement in which they attribute to El Confidencial, a medium that has uncovered espionage, the construction of a "manipulated and false story".

However, they do not deny the recording of meetings of the journalist from EL MUNDO with sources of information completely unrelated to the federative sphere, nor do they explain the reason why this material is part of the private investigators' report and has subsequently been provided in court.

For its part, the National Association of Private Detectives of Spain (ANADPE) has "strongly condemned any practice of espionage, a concept diametrically opposed to that of private investigation" and maintains that "no natural or legal person, whatever their profession, is exempt from being the object of private investigation.

“As long as they meet”, yes, “the requirements set out in the law”.

An extreme that this newspaper maintains has not occurred and that motivates its next complaint.

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