A Madrid court has sentenced 131 air traffic controllers at Madrid-Barajas and Torrejón airports for a crime of abandoning public service. The sentence was handed down within the macro-reason followed by the closure of the airspace on the bridge in December 2010, accompanied by the first declaration of the state of alarm in Spain. The fines imposed range between 15,000 and 31,500 euros. In addition, the defendants are sentenced to pay to the injured parties, together with the public entity Enaire (formerly Aena) as subsidiary civil liable, just over 13 million euros.
Both the Public Prosecutor’s Office and the private accusations demanded higher fines for some defendants, as well as that they be imposed temporary suspension of employment, which has not been agreed. Only two of the accused have been acquitted. One of them, César Cabo, who acted as spokesman for the Usca union and who was identified as the main promoter of the concerted action of the controllers. For him, the Prosecutor’s Office requested a fine of 75,000 euros and a one-year suspension from employment.
Most of the compensation imposed corresponds to the 1,000 euros that the magistrate of the Criminal Court 18 of Madrid imposes in favor of each passenger in respect of moral damages. More than 13,000 affected persons were represented at the trial. To that figure is added the cost of lost tickets and other expenses that have been credited.
The magistrate Margaret Valcarce concludes that “on the bridge of December 2010 the air traffic controllers accused in these proceedings adopted a mechanism of labor pressure consisting of leaving their jobs en masse, thus paralyzing the air traffic and this under the direction of the members of the board of directors and union delegates of the Usca union “.
The defendants “arranged” to interrupt air traffic, and for this “they cascaded a form alleging the decrease in psychophysical capacity that prevented them, in order to guarantee air safety, to continue in their respective areas. Job positions”.
“It is clear from the statements of the witnesses that the controllers displayed labor pressure behavior towards Aena”, and all on certain dates “in which there was going to be a lot of passenger movement, since it was the longest bridge of the year ± o “. “They used this mechanism to pressure the government so that the Royal Decree, which was finally published at 9:26 p.m., on December 3, 2010, was not approved,” the sentence added.
The judge reproduces in the sentence the recordings made to controllers on those dates, which “reveal the premeditated and organized nature of the union protest deployed by the accused.” “That objective was sought by the defendants, to cause the maximum noise with said concerted action aimed at the paralysis of air traffic, to win the pulse that they threw at the government, by causing the maximum economic damage against the company as effective against the interests of the citizenry, “says the magistrate.
Acquitted
Regarding the specific accusation against César Cabo, in the trial he denied having promoted or organized what happened and alleged that he was in Asia at that time. Likewise, he denied having attended the assemblies called both at the Torrejón control center and at the Auditorium hotel, repeating that he was not part of the USCA executive committee, nor did he use his union hours on the December 2010 bridge, as I was on vacation.
The magistrate shows her strangeness after verifying that, “despite the monumental evidence practiced over the course of so many months of holding the hearing, so little mention has been made of who, according to the accusations, was the main leader of the protest union”. “Not a question was formulated to the different witnesses to prove the active and effective participation of the aforementioned defendant, in the facts prosecuted. Only at the end of the plenary session, coinciding with the viewing of the programs broadcast on television, is when the accused appears again as spokesman for the union explaining the position of the civil controllers in the conflict they had with Aena and the Government, which occurred after the events brought to trial, “he adds.
“None of the accusations has shown that the accused agreed with the rest of the members of the executive committee of the Usca union to instigate the collective abandonment of jobs by the controllers; nor was any mention made throughout the act of the trial , nor has any evidence been practiced that involves the accused in the organization of the illegal union protest “, says the sentence, which can be appealed before the Provincial Court of Madrid.
The judge indicates that the actions of the defendants not only affected those who could not fly, “but also had serious economic consequences for tourism in the community of Madrid, on one of the bridges of the year with the greatest influx of travelers in the city “. However, it stands out that no amount has been claimed for this type of damage, “despite the fact that there were numerous cancellations of hotel reservations derived from the action of the civil controllers”
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