The Magistrate Judge Alexandra Gil, of the Court of Instruction 13 of Barcelona, ordered the filing and dismissal of the complaint that the businessman James Roures and Mediaproduction SLU presented against the former president of Barça, Joseph Maria Bartomeuand his adviser james masferrer for possible slander and insults in relation to the ‘Barçagate’ case. The audiovisual producer accused them of crimes against honor for accusations through the Twitter account @JaumedeTerror2 and on Facebook for the account JaumeUnFilmdeTerrorcreated by I3 Ventures, a company contracted by Barça to monitor social networks and the image of the club, its president, the board and the team.
The judge’s reasons
On the one hand, the magistrate orders the filing of the complaint because, as she argues in her brief, she considers that the expressions that James Roures saw as a reason insults against his person “cannot be considered serious injuries and minor injuries are atypical since they were decriminalized, which does not prevent the plaintiff from civilly protecting the right to honor, where appropriate, to see his right compensated” .
As for the alleged slander, Roures considers that there were expressions referring to his person that constituted a crime in these accounts (for example, “tax evasion“; “welcome ETA members in his house”; “will pay 20 million to stop an investigation into bribery if fifagate“; “generation of fake bills at case 3%“; “Jaume Roures issued false invoices worth 351,746 euros that were used to pay bribes (…)”; “has accounts in different parts of the world with the sole objective of pay less taxes“; “dangerous criminal“).
However, the magistrate recalls in her brief, drawing on jurisprudence, that “for the existence of the crime of slander it is not enough to generically blame another person for facts constituting a criminal offence, but it is necessary that this imputation be made in a specific way and in any case clearly individualizing the generic characteristics of the criminal type that is attributed to the alleged slandered person. In other words, vague or ambiguous vague attributions are not enough, but rather the accusation must fall on unequivocal facts, concrete and certain, precise in its meaning”, adding that the subjective and final element of the type is the purpose of attacking the honor and fame of the offended party. This means that the imputation must be false, subjectively untruewell because it has been carried out knowingly of its inaccuracy, or because it has proceeded with absolute disregard for the truth”.
These are facts already published in the press previously
In this sense, the magistrate points out that “it turns out that the comments in which certain and more specific facts are imputed, which could constitute a crime, refer to facts already published in the press before”. Specifically, for example, a news item published in The country in which it is reported that a subsidiary of the group Mediapro on Miami agreed to pay money to avoid the continuation of a procedure concerning two crimes of fraud by bribe senior managers of Caribbean football associations to acquire match marketing rights.
Denial of the defendants
The magistrate adds that the foregoing would already be sufficient to decree the dismissal of the Roures lawsuit, but also adds that “it is necessary to refer to whether or not the defendants had intervention in those publications that for the undersigned do not constitute a crime” . She points out the magistrate that Bartomeu and Masferrer “They deny having hired I3 Ventures in order to create accounts and discredit Mr. Rouresnot knowing the content of what was published on social networks about it”.
Not even in contracts.
Nor do they work on cars “the contracts From whose literal tenor the conclusion can be drawn that the FCB, through the two defendants, hired I3Ventures to discredit the figure of Mr. Roures“.
The testimonials
In addition, the Judge specifies that in two testimonial statements by two I3Ventures workers, Messrs. Vallés and Asenjo, who declared that “he never had dealings with Mr. Bartomeu or with anyone from Barça, that what he commented on Facebook and Twitter did on the fly in line with what was published on networks, always real news and that they did not give him instructions to attack anyone. She added that the purpose of the Jaumeunfilmdeterror page was to make “a satire, criticism of James Roures with the intention of protecting FCB because he (Roures) always took the opportunity to attack FCB and its board”.
The magistrate’s brief adds that “the two witnesses did not declare that the instructions of what they should publish on networks regarding the plaintiffs came from the defendants Mr. Bartomeu or Mr. Masferrer“.
The judge’s conclusions
In short, the Judge considers that “there is no indications” that Bartomeu and Masferrer “hired I3Ventures to publish content aimed at disrespecting the complainants”.
He also notes that “can’t brag that everything published by the workers of I3Ventures was ordered by the defendants or that they gave instructions tending to disrespect Mr. Roura or the company of which he is an administrator”.
In addition, he emphasizes that “participation is not recorded of the defendants in some facts that neither do they constitute a crimeo”. For all these reasons, it orders the “free dismissal and filing of the case”.
The declaration of Bartomeu and Masferrer
The former president of Barca and his adviser appeared before the judge on October 4 in a brief statement in which Bartomeu He replied that “at no time did he commission the realization of any type of account related to anyone.” In that sense, he added that he “was not aware of the tweets that appear reflected in the complaint” of James Roureswho decided to present himself as a private prosecution after learning that he was on the alleged ‘black list’ that the Mossos had obtained in the BarçaGate documentation.
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