In Euskal Herria, torture has gone down in numbers in the last four years. There are far fewer arrests, but the State also has increased international pressure each year. There have also been changes in the forms, “especially psychological, not physical”, explains Barrios. Those who send in Spain do not like the work of the psychologist, who was arrested in the operation against Jaiki Hadi last March. He is now processed, he is also a victim of “ETA”.

What is the torturer looking for?

It may be that in the 70s or 80s it is a technique of seeking information, but in the last decade it is clear that the information they want already has it before being tortured. After many years of study on the subject of torture, I do not believe that this is the most important objective. It is used more to destroy a political movement than for that. Every individual is destroyed to scare and destroy an entire collective.

What is the torturer like? Can you do research to find out what kind of people they are?

It's hard because they're not willing to talk to the researchers. In very few cases, interviews have been conducted with torturers, particularly from Latin America and Eastern Europe. They are often repentant torturers who cannot live peacefully. But most torturers welcome their work. It is better to destroy that person than to destroy society. What they do is they do about that moral justification. They lead a normal life, they're not psychopaths or monsters, it's their job and they go home with total normality. However, in the police, not everything is worth being tortured, and in these groups people come in with a certain profile.

Do we know anything about these selection processes?

Little, they only work with many psychologists and psychiatrists. I guess you're going to study people's profiles to find out who can serve as a torturer and suffer him. Once the group is formed, they are the only ones who are trained in torture, perhaps the rest of the police do not even know that there is such a group, and even if you know it, you do not know who its members are.

Do they last a long time in this job?

Some, at least. When tortured people describe torturers at different times, you realize they are the same people.

A torturer fired in Pamplona from a young man who had been tortured by himself. So are they people here?

They are groups from here and in Madrid there is also a group from there. They go to Madrid with the detainee, after spending five or six days there. The farewell of the tortured on the street is very frequent, especially if released after arrest.

But usually, torture doesn't see its faces, doesn't it?

Sometimes yes. Sometimes the torturer takes off the hood, especially when the defendant has been charged, when his work is terminated. The tortured want them to see their face. It's a terrible nightmare, a face that's not going to happen to you all your life. That's why they do it, and that's why it's better not to see the face.

They will be casuistic of all kinds, but does torture ever remove the burden of torture?

It won't take it off, it will take it for a lifetime. It can overcome some symptoms, place the problem well, understand what happened, heal some wounds… but an experience like this can revolutionize your life. Most of the time it's said that you're one before and another after torture.

There have been thousands of tortured and many of them may still have the ball of torture circling inside. What can they be advised of?

Take the ball out. The way to approach torture is changing in society, there is more and more research, there is more and more research against it, it has become more visible, the government has also started to investigate… All this is good for these people too, because they can encourage them to come to someone, to testify, to report…

However, many of the torturers of another generation have integrated torture as part of their militancy; it was seen as a consequence to suffer and not as such to their own individualism. Hard comparisons are often made: “How will I complain if the other is dead?” From the mid-1990s, especially since the beginning of the TAT [Groups against Torture], the topic of torture and more human space was given visibility.

Keeping that ball of torture in its interior on several occasions will also have psychological consequences.

Yes, post-traumatic stress is what we most know and has symptoms such as anxiety, sleep problems, getting away from anything that can remind you of torture... But the consequences of torture go beyond, there can be severe depression, heart problems due to long anxieties, a general imbalance, they may not encompass this world and that of 30 years ago, or physical problems may occur very but psychosomatic. The hardest thing there can be is psychotic disorders, but these are in the minority.

Chambers in different places, reported arrests, Supreme Court rulings… In Spain they have begun to put obstacles to torture.

Yes. International intonation is much tougher with Spain, both by the European Group against the Prevention of Torture and by the judgments of the Strasbourg Court. Spain is called upon to take measures against torture and this is reflected in the reduction in the number of torture, in fewer incommunicado cases. In my detention [March 2015], the Civil Guard took me to the police station of Tres Cantos de Madrid and in the jail cells of the detainees there were cameras, but in corridors and interrogation rooms no. “We had to blame them,” he told me and added that in the last 10 raids no one has been incommunicado. I do not know if it is entirely true, but yes, in any case they have been very few. This is a very large step, as the situation of incommunicado detention allows torture.

As far as those who promise torture are concerned, how far do they go on the upstairs?

We know nothing, but in the deduction they should be people with a high political level, at least what they allow.

In the area of current victims, where is torture?

All our torturers demand recognition, not so much economic or judicial reparation. They have not been excluded, but they have been hidden. The most painful thing for them is that society does not believe what has happened and with confession is seen tortured, something that has not happened until ahora.Reconocimiento, reparation and non-repetition: these three concepts used in many conflicts are the most vindicated in the case of torture.

By making the report of the Basque Government public, the visibility of torture is going to be high. Is there going to be progress in recognition, can we give criminal responsibility?

I don't think that's ever happening. But this recognition can be done in many ways: The Basque Government’s investigation is a recognition, incommunication and also the investigation of torture.