The Spanish Supreme court has confirmed a 6-month suspension for a Guardia Civil policeman for demanding payments from illegal street hawkers.

The policeman was accused of exacting small amounts of money from immigrants involved in hawking CD’s etc in Sevilla, in return for tipping them off over the presence of Policia Local patrols back in 2009.

The Guardia Civil Head Quarters suspended the officer for a total period of five years, but he lodged an appeal before the Ministry of Defence (The Guardia Civil is a military unit – the other police forces come under the Ministry of the Interior).

The MoD reduced the suspension to only six months, but he decide to launch another appeal before the Supreme Court, which has just confirmed the 6-month suspension from service.

His activities came to light when the Policía Local in Isla de la Cartuja in Sevilla discovered that the market spaces occupied by authorized stall holders were afterwards occupied by illegal immigrants selling their wares on blankets on the ground once the traders had packed up.

When the police closed them down, the immigrants appeared confused and upset, explaining that they had already ‘paid’ two policemen, one of them being a retired Guardia Civil policeman and the other the sentenced man, Corporal Juan Miguel P.E.

The Policía Local reported their findings to the Guardia Civil Headquarters, who decided to carry out a surveillance operation, which confirmed that that the policeman was ‘managing’ the illegal traders, using walkie-talkies to alert them to the presence of municipal police patrols.

In June 2009 the surveillance unit pounced and searched him, turning up receipts from the hawkers, charging each one four euros for his ‘service.’

“The corporal admitted to his superiors that he was doing it because he needed “a little extra” thanks to the economic strain of his house mortgage, emphasizing that he wasn’t “drug dealing or anything of that kind.”

The Ministry of Defence and the Supreme Court accepted his explanation as attenuating circumstances; hence the suspension reduction from five years to just six months.

Editorial comment: Once trust is destroyed, why is the policeman even allowed to remain in the force? Mind boggling!

(News: Sevilla, Andalucia)