Pablo González receives the first visit from his family in eight months in a Polish prison

The family of Pablo González collects, on November 8, the José María Portell Award for Freedom of Expression on behalf of the journalist imprisoned in Poland. AVP (Europa Press)

Oihana Goiriena, wife of Pablo González Yagüe, the 40-year-old Spanish journalist imprisoned in Poland for more than eight months, managed to visit her husband for the first time this Monday since he was arrested at the end of February accused of spying for Russia.

The meeting, which lasted two hours, was held in the presence of an agent from the Warsaw intelligence service, as detailed by Goiriena in a statement sent this Tuesday through his lawyer, Gonzalo Boye, who accompanied him at the meeting. .

"Pablo is physically and emotionally well, he has been greatly encouraged by the visit and, despite the lack of privacy, I have been able to update him on everything that has happened in these months regarding his children and the rest of his family, both in Spain and in Russia”, he points out in the note.

The wife has recalled that, precisely,

This first visit took place after the journalist changed his team of lawyers in Poland and the new one managed the meeting.

His wife has reiterated that she is confident that "in a short space of time" he will be able to hold a second visit "if the Polish authorities allow it."

Until now, she had only received a visit from his lawyer and the Spanish consul in the Central European country, Merino de Mena.

Family contact had been limited to sending several letters.

In the statement, Goiriena details that during the visit she has conveyed to her husband "the multiple demonstrations of support" that her case is receiving "from many people, friends, the media, journalists, some politicians, associations, institutions and, above all, everything, from the enormous efforts made by the people who make up [the movement] #FreePablo”.

More information

The Spanish Pablo González, six months in prison and alone in Poland, five letters to his wife and four visits

The note points out that the demonstrations of support have filled the journalist with energy "to remain firm in this battle that will not be short or easy" to obtain his freedom and to return to Gernika (Bizkaia), where he lives.

The wife also said in the statement that she had not previously reported that the appointment was going to take place "in order to be able to do it discreetly and within an intimate environment, but also to avoid generating situations that could have led to preventing it." ”.

González was arrested during the night of February 27-28, shortly after the start of the invasion of Ukraine, in the Polish city of Przemysl [a city a few kilometers from the border with this country] by the Warsaw authorities.

He was accused of espionage activities in favor of Moscow.

The Polish government released a note three days later detailing that the Internal Security Agency (ABW) captured the journalist "on suspicion" of having carried out "operations for the benefit of Russia, benefiting from his status as a journalist" during the crisis of refugees after the outbreak of the war.

Since then, he has been held in a cell without windows in the high-security unit of the Radom prison, some 70 kilometers from Warsaw, where he spends 23 hours a day, with only one hour of walking in a courtyard measuring seven by four meters. as the journalist himself has detailed to his wife in the letters he has sent her in recent months.

Reporters Without Borders has repeatedly denounced the extremely harsh conditions in which González finds himself, without respecting his presumption of innocence.

Polonia assures that Pablo González, with three children, uses the names of Aleksey Rutsov or Pavel Rubtsov as "aliases", as it appears in the original prison order.

These, indeed, are the names they gave him at birth: Pavel Alekseevich Rubtsov.

He was born in 1982 in Moscow, as he is the grandson of a

, the minors transferred to Russia during the Spanish Civil War.

For this reason, he has dual nationality and two passports and has been registered with both names in the Vizcaya Civil Registry since 1991, by virtue of the divorce decree of his parents, as his lawyer has detailed in recent months.

When he was arrested, he had a Spanish and a Russian passport, each one with its respective name, for which reason both were considered false by the Polish police.

González's father, Aleksiej, still resides in Moscow.

In fact, he sends the journalist 350 euros per month by transfer as financial aid, which has been considered by the Polish authorities as further proof that he is at the service of the Kremlin.

The family frequently travels to Russia.

In these months, the family has shown its discomfort with the Spanish government, which it has accused of not having done "nothing" to help the journalist.

In fact, they complain that President Pedro Sánchez barely spent time on the matter during his visit to Poland last June, when he said it was left to the country's courts.

The Embassy of Spain in Warsaw has assured in these months that it is doing "the opportune follow-up" since it learned of the case and explained that Pablo González has been visited by the consul on several occasions.