Franco's last breath, the transition... And you, journalist.

The Francoist procurators who ruled in Congress signed their harakiri and decided that we were going to move into democracy. They had a huge sense of guilt for the years of dictatorship, which were the moral need to dress up in the masks of democracy. So the left-wing, progressive, or just those who wanted change, lived in full effervescence. There was a demonstration on all corners, journalists understood the trade for the thirst for freedom of expression, we fought until the last drop of blood for every word we wrote ... No reporter at the time consented to change a beetle, when we were interrupted by the word, it was a real scandal, a problem of censorship for the right. But on the street you didn't have the freedom you had on paper. It was enough to go to a demonstration and find out that those who were in similar circumstances were a journalist to shatter his face. The police did not tolerate being spared from his excesses. That was what was there and yet it was a freer press than the current one. In these times when newspapers are in the hands of banks, there's nothing easier than censoring them, you don't have to pick up the phone.

Free from the claws of censure, didn't you realize what was behind the GAL?

At first, no, but we saw the preparations for the shooting quite quickly. The GAL is barbaric, barbaric. However, at that time the dilemma in Spain was different: “Do you prefer to create commands to cleanse those who kill us or coup d’état?” When the GAL appeared, the attempted coup d'état and the risks were continuous. The military were slaves to Franco, the legalizations of the Communist Party were shaking, and in the barracks there was no choice but to project the coups d'état. On his arrival in power, Felipe González tried to calm the waters, but seeing the river crumbling and dirty, he let the GAL go ahead. It made it easier, it gave rise to a deep-rooted operation. In fact, many think that the dirty war started with the LAGs and ended with the LAGs, but the Spanish Basque Battalion and company are already past.

Does corruption also come from there?

During Franco, businesses between powerful and rulers were hand-in-hand and left everything well tied. During the Transition business remained stable, but our eyes focused more on politics than on economics at the table. We came from the dictatorship, the extremes were very marked, and although everyone threw away everything they could, the important thing was not to break the strings. When there was no danger of the rope breaking, in the 1990s, the spring of corruption cases flourished that the culture of the pelotazo collects. He splintered with very powerful people, hooked up to powerful people, but instead of internalizing the lessons of transparency and honesty, the motto “if you don’t steal, another will steal and you will be fools!” spread. That is why they have continued to steal those who have stolen. But let us not deceive ourselves, every time an inquiry into a political party is launched, it is not because the state's control structures have worked, but because someone who was charging for that corrupt system and who has been excluded has started to speak. The Gürtel and Barbara cases come from the revenge of a Pozuelo councilor, not from the austerity of the state. Where are the state structures?

If anyone knows, you know.

I do not know where the state structures are and what they serve for. The Court of Auditors serves to: Whenever an investigation into political parties is opened, two of the advisers proposed by pp and PSOE are in charge of investigating. Do you know any wolf that eats basket? People think the anti-corruption network is thick, so some fish run away. But it's the other way around. It's a very thin, too thin network. It catches all the small fish, but the large fish break the net with their own weight. We all know that Rajoy appears in Barbara's papers, who sent him a message of encouragement when he was on his way to jail, but do you think a judge will call him to testify? It has total impunity, even if it's caught in the net, it breaks the net.

How did the network “Everything is ETA” be woven?

In the papers found in the arrest of ETA member Dorronsoro Malaxetxebarria were found organigrams of the entire Abertzale left, future perspectives, tasks of each structure and institution... and two. In this way, Garzón pulled the rope until the mob was completely dissolved. What had happened? It is possible, but not in the use of papers, but in the use of civil or police reports as evidence. It was enough for an individual to say that he was an expert in the fight against terrorism for his report to be seen as evidence and, in most cases, such reports were nothing but personal analysis of what might happen. Garzón knew that ETA's strength wasn't just in the commands, and with the well-oiled machinery, she went on to choke the area. The Abertzale left the Abertzale left breathless, revealing the cracks of the movement and, in the end, the Abertzale left itself has told ETA to finish.

And who is going to tell Spain to complete legal engineering so as not to force the law?

From the outset I have been against the Parot doctrine. I find it unacceptable to move from Europe and not to take into account in Spain the years of imprisonment in France. There is nothing more miserable than starting to play solitaire and cheating. If you're a democrat, you have to comply with the laws you've imposed on you, there's no more. In international law, however, there is donkey and carrot, which reproaches are useless if there is no punishment. For better or worse, the criminal area of international law is based on shame, on resignation in the event of an attack. Of course, that is true in Norway or in Germany, not in Spain. In Spain, nobody resigns and, worse still, they sleep peacefully with the conviction that they have done a favor.

As a result of the information you have published, you had to resign the President of the Supreme Court and the Judiciary, Carlos Dívar.

But he was not resigned by him, but resigned. Carlos Dívar is considered the direct successor of the Holy Spirit, he claimed 24 hours a day as president of the Supreme Court, and I pulled out the information that I put against the wall that managed the situation very badly. If, like the king, he would have regretted having done a little theater and regretted having made a mistake that would not happen again, he would have continued in office, with or without refund of the money. But he straightened like a rooster. He refused to give explanations to the press and, more seriously, he did not mean a single word to his own. For this presumption she was removed from the middle, not for having caught her in the bag. When the scandal broke out, his spins accused me of not doing it to a friend. No, no, no, a 30-year-old relationship doesn't make anyone a friend. It was a source for me, no more and no less. If he suspected that I'm collaborating with ETA, he would stop me, right? I'm a journalist, and if I have elements to prove that this guy's rotten, I'll tell you. On the eve of the greatest media slap I have written in my life, I have always given the opportunity to defend those I had in the spotlight, but from there ...

Only to the Head.

An exclusive should be a source of pride for the newspaper, but for the director it can be a real headache breaker. There's everything. Some journalists are specialists in non-negligible exclusive. If you say that ETA has nuclear weapons, who is going to oppose it, the ETA press office? That's not exclusive or anything, and even if your boss is a journalistic deontologist, he'll go home quietly. However, if you found out that there is an internal war because the brothers in El Corte Inglés are angry, you would look paler than pale. He is well aware that El Corte Inglés invests 1% of its billing in media advertising. Also, how do you think the director is going to look at you on the board if you throw out the old rags of the bank president sitting next to you and that every Friday is part of the paddle? There is no choice but to publish some news, but journalism has many shadows. How many means have they followed until very late, knowing that they were lying, spreading to ETA after the attacks of 11 March, so as not to close the sources of money and information about the pp?

Is investigative journalism the biggest enemy in the middle?

The media cut the wings of research and leave them to economic power. Have you seen any research report about Banco Santander, BBVA or El Corte Inglés? No. It's called investigative journalism to go underground on the border with Syria, and why not tell it, if you're kidnapped much better, higher audience. We have a huge pedigree of journalism in the trenches. We want to go on the train of refugees, get through the sea on the boat of immigrants -- but when do we start to investigate the forces that have the power? Do press offices have all short chain links? They agree on that, on selling realities that don't generate questions, on convincing you that your job is to facilitate yours. I will never forget that when the current director of a large media was press manager of the Ministry of the Interior, I asked him, I answered: “We do not claim or deny... We don’t rule it out!” I have always thought that behind that phrase there was much more to research on a refugee train.

As long as we are in the Ministry of the Interior, let us study the separation of powers.

Thanks to the absolute majority obtained in the elections, Parliament and the Government belong to the pp, as well as to the vocals of the judiciary that appoint the head of the judiciary. One of the two judges to whom it is now incumbent to judge the Gürtel case is accused of having affinity with the pp, and the other is the one who organized a persecution against the Socialists of the Junta de Castilla y León for that unfortunate fire. If these two judges lose meaning and condemn the defendants, the case would reach the Second Chamber of the Supreme Court, where it is also chosen by the pp. Since we are simple people who cannot think badly, let us suppose that there will also be convictions and that the final word would be given by the Constitutional Court. By chance, the president of the Constitutional Court, until he took office, was a pp militant. We were talking about separation of powers, right?

The 2013 ERE divided El País and its paths.

I didn't get fired by the SRE, the elders fired me. It was a hurdle for them, a tough one that required them to comply with their standards and to influence their peers. If you have a style book it is to apply it, if in the writing there are statutes to comply with... I wasn't silent, I was saying what I thought, and in a medium like El País, you can never tell everything I thought to my boss. So, I've learned that there's life outside El País, but that doesn't mean it didn't hurt me. 29 years playing leather by a newspaper... In the mailbox there has never been my name, the phone was not in my name, I have always prohibited opening any package to my children... It was part of my salary and I did not ask for a tribute. That's right, I didn't expect a blow to my family's back.