The defense of Begoña Gómez has, the woman who pointed out in 2022 in a digital medium that the president’s wife, Begoña Gómez, was born a man and that her real name is Begoño. Baselga also spread the hoax that Gómez was involved “with a drug trafficking issue in Morocco.” The judge acquitted the agitator, ensuring that the term “is not in itself insulting” and that its use may be protected “by the prevailing right of criticism” or “satirical humor.” The accused alluded to publications from “alternative media”, but without remembering which ones.
The president’s wife filed a complaint against the agitator and Distrito TV, the medium where the hoaxes were spread. But two weeks ago the court decided to acquit Baselga, considering that “the subjective element of the charged crime is not proven, that is, that the expression used has undermined the honor of the complainant, therefore, the facts declared proven do not have the criminal relevance to be worthy of criminal reproach, and must be considered atypical.” However, Gómez argues that the judge has not correctly applied the Penal Code regarding the crime of libel that was being tried and proposes approaching the case “as an error in the appreciation of the evidence” presented. “The sentence is manifestly incorrect and must be revoked, to grant due and effective judicial protection to those who have been the victim of a crime,” reads the letter, presented this Monday.
Gómez’s defense also affirms that the attribution of transsexuality “is an idea copied” from the case of Brigitte Macron, wife of the current president of France, Emmanuel Macron, and that of Michele Obama, partner of former US president Barak Obama.
The appeal analyzes the Gómez’s defense warns in the appeal that “the facts They typify very serious and unjustified insults, a seriousness that is directly inferred, first of all, from the very content of the expressions used, which include a complete spectrum of denigration, incorporating an attack against dignity, privacy and one’s own personality ―calling her, with denigrating intent, transsexual―, an insult ―calling her Begoño― an involvement in seriously illicit activities ―drug trafficking―, so serious that they would have caused his dismissal from his job.
And, on the other hand, the defense affirms that “the insults were carried out with publicity” since they were carried out in a television program. “The enormous public impact of the accused’s demonstrations has been objectively contrasted in the impact it obtained in the country’s main newspapers in the following days, as well as in searches for linked terms on the Internet, as can be verified in open sources,” the document argues. The hoax that Gómez is transsexual was a trend on social networks and views of the program multiplied in a few hours.
Judge Beatriz Suárez Martín, head of the Criminal Court Number 22 of Madrid, recognized in the ruling that “the expressions used have been very close to crossing the thin line between satire and defamation,” but that “the term Begoño is not in itself insulting” and that its use can be protected “by the prevailing right of criticism” or “satirical humor.” And he added that “a condemnatory sentence is only possible when the terms used are disproportionate with respect to the legitimate object of the criticism pursued.” Regarding this, the appeal defines it as “incomprehensible that the judge considers this insult as ‘satire’ or ‘satirical humor’.
This type of affront, the magistrate describes in the ruling, can cause a serious “impact” on a person’s reputation. However, Suárez warns that the case has not included “the statement of the victim of the crime” “that would allow us to conclude that the expressions had an impact on his reputation.” The defense presented an expert report, but the magistrate pointed out that this cannot replace the “personal and direct account” of the complainant. That is, Suárez Martín alleges that “he does not know if the expressions made by the accused against Gómez injured his dignity, undermined his fame or violated his own self-esteem, honor being a subjective and intimate right linked to the person.”
The representation of the president’s wife attacks the judge for this conclusion. “The sentence reaches its highest levels of irrationality when it states, following the line of this exculpatory argument, that there is no evidence that the victim of the infamies had been in ‘medical treatment or has needed therapy’ as a result of these events, so there is no proof of the impact on his honor.” In this way, the defense asks in the appeal document: Is it necessary for the victim of public ridicule to have been in medical treatment to consider that a crime of libel has been committed against him? Similar arguments are presented to us almost as a mockery that points to the bias and prejudice with which the trial judge has faced this matter. “
Gómez’s defense has incorporated into the appeal a new video that Baselga posted on his Telegram channel after learning of the sentence. In it, the agitator is happy about the file of the case. “Hello everyone. We have won. You can say Begoñoit is not a crime. There is no sentence for costs, there is no fine, there is nothing. Total absolution,” says the woman, before blowing a kiss to her spectators and starting to sing: “Begoño It can be said and it is no longer a crime. It’s not a crime, you see? I have won.”
During the trial, held in mid-March,: “If any expression I made was unfortunate, I apologize. But a questionable expression does not become a crime.” In her statement, the woman assured that her assertions were supported by information published in other media, that they were the result of “improvisation,” that she did not seek to “slander anyone,” but that the tone, she added, was “inappropriate.” Now, he returns to the same fold with the publication of this video on his networks.
The judge has insisted that there has been no “sufficient and necessary fraud” and “that the expressions [también las referentes al narcotráfico] “They did not have sufficient credibility to attack the honor and credit of Gómez.”
The accusation requested a fine of 21,000 euros for the accused and solidarity compensation of another 20,000 that Distrito TV, the channel where the program was broadcast, must also pay. The untouchables and where Baselga, as a collaborator, launched the hoax. “Our dear first lady… well, second lady, because the first is the Queen, I dare say that there are suspicions that she was initially Begoño. This wife of the president or husband comes from a family with a tradition of gay saunas, this must be said,” he said in the program, which is broadcast on YouTube (with more than 520,000 subscribers) and on DTT.
Baselga has been accused in court for spreading other hoaxes about the Bar España in Valencia (where she points to theories conspiracy about an alleged pedophile network in said location decades ago) or about the Dana tragedy, stating that they hid them. The agitator, an art historian, is known for being one of the first people to file a complaint in 2022 against Gómez for her work as director of an extraordinary chair at the Complutense University of Madrid. Also for having thousands of followers on their social networks; on YouTube, more than 42,000, although he does not publish content frequently. In one of the last publications he announced the creation of a school with private teachers, The School of Truth, where he harangues parents to reject official education, which “hypersexualizes” and “indoctrinates” children. This is what Baselga announces: “Be brave and fight for the souls of your children, because schools are soul-killers.”
