The Basque journalist Pablo González has offered in Russia Today (RT) his first interview after leaving prison and has offered information about his detention in Poland, which has lasted two years and five months. Gonzalez has stated that for nine months he was "tortured, threatened and pressured", and that he was accused of "only suspicion", as can be seen in the video of the interview received by EITB. “I asked: What have I done? What are they accusing me of? They said, "Well, you know. “I didn’t know,” Gonzalez said on Russian television. Gonzalez said he was accused of working with Russian intelligence, but was not imposed on him immediately, but "after a while", as can be seen in the video released by RT journalist Helena Villar.

The journalist's wife, Oihana Goiriena, has declared that González has been in prison "without natural air, locked in moisture, very cold in winter and without heating, and heated in summer". The journalist has said that he has lost 20 kilos of jail, that they had bad food and that they did not have medical care, as he explained. When he was one and a half years in prison, fourteen MEPs handed over a letter to Zbigniew Zobro, Minister of Justice of Poland, denouncing the situation of the Basque journalist: "During the 18 months he's spent in prison, he's been in incommunicado detention, 23 hours a day in a sunless cell."

The journalist reports that the psychologist who spoke to him in Polish jail suggested that he "commit suicide," according to RT: “The session with the psychologist lasted fifteen minutes, of which thirteen were his monologues. If something happened to me, if I felt bad, he told me I could try to commit suicide.” Gonzalez pointed out that in Poland a person who was "a criminal ruler" was established as a cellmate with the intention of "frightening" him, but he stressed that the Polish prisoners helped him. "We became friends, it was the first one who told me that they were pushing me because they had nothing against it. He told me to hold me down. That was a moral help to me,” said Gonzalez about the prisoner who put him in a cellmate, according to Heraldo.

False and unjudged information

The journalist has stated that he was able to meet his lawyer for the first time nine months after his arrest in the United Kingdom. Gonzalez has denounced that false information has been published, such as it was condemned, and has provided information on the operation of the legislation in Poland. “There are many steps in Polish legislation. You are suspected of a crime, then you are charged, and then you go to court with that indictment. I was accused of a single suspicion and I had no trial,” the Basque journalist said on Russian television.

Despite the fact that on 3 April 2022 the Polish Government issued a statement stating that there were “big tests”, Goiriena specified that he was accused of using fake passports, but when he claimed that he had two passports – because he was born in Russia and when he was a child he went to the Basque Country – “they were silent.”

Help, "where less was expected"

In an interview with RT, Goiriena said that during her husband's prison she did not receive a call from the Spanish Ministry of Foreign Affairs and that the Spanish Government "violated the presumption of innocence", according to the Eureka News channel. “They say the charges against him were very serious and the evidence was irrefutable when there have been no charges or evidence. They have done nothing to unblock the situation, nor to respect their fundamental rights,” Goiriena said on the part of the Spanish Government.

The Basque journalist has said that the aid has come "from where less was expected", in reference to Euskadi Radio. When the exchange of prisoners was reported, the RT reported that the Polish special services continued to press for González to accept his "alleged guilt", but that Gonzalez's decision to enter the exchange of prisoners came from Washington.