The documentary "part" of the crime of the Urban Guard that outrages its participants

The notorious crime of the Guardia Urbana, which was an earthquake in the world of the local police of Barcelona, continues to bring tail. In addition to the fiction series El Cuerpo en llamas, Netflix has also released a documentary about the murder of Pedro Rodríguez at the hands of his ex-partner, Rosa Peral, along with his lover, Albert López. Rosa Peral's tapes give voice to the firmly convicted, who assures that she has been a victim of a macho society that has judged her more for her sexual behavior than for the solid evidence against her. And he contrasts his version with what journalists, lawyers and the prosecutor of the case say. Four of the other six people interviewed in addition to Peral, her father and her lawyer feel deceived by the production company Brutal Media, and claim that they hid the real objective of the documentary film: to whitewash the convicted. Netflix declined to comment on the controversy. The head writer defends the work done: "It's an objective summary of what was discussed in the interviews."

The Netflix promotion The Rosa Peral Tapes makes it clear what it is about: "In this documentary film, Rosa Peral gives her first interview in prison." "It is the definitive documentary in which Rosa breaks her silence from prison to talk to us about the crime of the Urban Guard," adds through Twitter the producer, Brutal Media. One of the participants, the journalist Toni Muñoz, author of the book on the case Only you will have me (Peninsula), criticizes: "It is a crude manipulation of reality," in which "they have selected decontextualized fragments of the trial to sow doubts about their guilt by saying that there is no evidence."

The journalist discovered a few weeks before the premiere that the documentary was not the neutral work on the case that had been assured to him, but "Peral's version." "It is very unserious that I am invited to participate in a documentary where they tell me that it will be like Crims [the TV3 program that already dealt with the case] and even tell me a false title," he complains. His surprise was added to that of other interviewees. One of the most relevant is the prosecutor, Felix Martin. "I asked who was participating and they hid from me that Rosa Peral was doing it," says Martín. "The first time they proposed it to me, I refused. I told them that I had already participated in a documentary. But they convinced me, saying that it was very necessary to explain the way the prosecutor works," he recalls. His voice is one of the threads of the film: the public accusation that led to the sentence of 25 years in prison for Peral. She and the prosecutor star on screen in a kind of deferred confrontation. "I do not agree in any way that in the montage the version of the Prosecutor's Office is contrasted with that of a person convicted in firm," laments Martín.

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Trailer of 'The Body on Fire'

Quim Gutiérrez and Úrsula Corberó in a moment of 'El cuerpo en llamas'. Photo: Netflix | Video: Netflix

"They set a little trap for us," said Juan Carlos Zayas, the lawyer representing the family of the victim, Pedro Rodriguez. He affirms that he, like the journalist Toni Muñoz, was explained that it would be a program "similar to Crims", which dedicated four chapters to the notorious murder, where they do not interview either of the two convicted. And like prosecutor Martin, Zayas declined. But he explains that after the insistence of the producer, who assured him that the rest of his colleagues participated, in the end he said yes. "I didn't know that behind everything was Rosa Peral's hand whitewashing her image," he laments. Neither Albert López, the other convicted of the murder, nor his lawyer appears in the documentary.

Veteran events journalist Mayka Navarro also believes there was a hoax to get her part in the film. "They never wanted to tell us the platform. All with a lot of secrecy, but they assured us that we were essential," he recalls, about how they were convinced to be part of the story. "From four hours of interview they have only used what fit them with their thesis that we colluded in the perverse image that was given of Rosa," he laments. Journalist Carlos Quílez is the only reporter interviewed with his participation in Las cintas de Rosa Peral. He acknowledges that he did know that Peral had been visited in prison, but nothing more. "For me it was a surprise to see and hear Rosa Peral in the documentary. But whether I participated or not, did not affect me at all to say what I think of the case, "argues the journalist.

"I did not tell them who all the participants were," admits Carlos Agulló, the main screenwriter of Las cintas de Rosa Peral, who details that in this type of work a confidentiality clause is signed by which they can not tell any details. "We didn't tell anyone," he stresses. But he insists that "there has been no manipulation when it comes to dealing with the questions and answers." "It's the vision they give us," he defends. "When you go into a documentary in a case like this, everyone knows what they're exposing themselves to," he says.

"They cleverly played at selling us the bike that it was a neutral thing. And it is not so neutral," complains lawyer Juan Carlos Zayas, who concedes that if he had known that Peral was being interviewed, he would not have been part of it. "Since I know her, I would have said no," he says. And he recalls that his position as a lawyer for the victim's relatives is especially delicate: "The only thing that can bother me is that Pedro's family may think that I have lent myself to that. But I have already explained it to him." "I'm a little upset, even understanding it," summarizes Zayas, who would have appreciated being told "that there was some whitewashing."

"Should we have been more cautious? More suspicious? It's possible," reflects Navarro, who is not satisfied with the on-screen outcome of a four-hour interview. "People in Catalonia who have seen Crims and read Toni Muñoz's book have a clear idea of what happened. For people who come from scratch to that story, the documentary completely distorts it," he says. Muñoz is blunt: "I would have participated in a neutral, journalistic documentary, but not in a part. I am a journalist, I stick to telling facts or objective facts. But they put me on a side, when my only side is the truth."

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