Whom does the Spanish press try to cover up?

This is a follow up to our article "Financial Speculation behind Smear Campaign" regarding the situation with Vladimir Kokorev, a Russian businessman residing in Spain who has been smeared by Spain's two largest newspapers during the last three years. The Spanish press has continually ignored publicly available information, which provides conclusive evidence of his innocence, as well as several defamation suits carried out by Kokorev where he has claimed victory. Since the publishing of our last article, the Spanish newspapers have now reacted: EL MUNDO apparently is not aware of having lost the defamation court case and EL PAIS is in a state of sincere hysteria. 

EL MUNDO did not know anything

According to an interview in Periodista Digital with Antonio Rubio, he is not even aware of being sued for defamation - despite the fact that a court decision in favor of the Russian businessman was handed down to EL MUNDO ordering them to publish a full retraction on its website refuting their false claims. This case was extensively covered by Russian media sources in the English language. Is Spain indeed so removed from international media?  

Moreover, and further defying any common sense, EL MUNDO declared in a press release (that they were cautious enough not to upload to their web-site) that the information about the court case against its publication is a lie and that "Antonio Rubio has never even been to Russia". Perhaps he should. We would provide him with a good translator and, who knows, we might even carry out a joint journalistic investigation of the "Kalunga Case".   

Maybe it would serve Antonio Rubio well to understand why we have such a big interest in this matter and why we are publishing information that Mr. Rubio and his colleagues seem to be making every effort to hide from the public.

There are 244 reasons for us to write about this case, one for each sailor who signed an open letter addressed to journalists in defense of Vladimir Kokorev, their former employer. The letter was published on-line in February 2010, when Kokorev was under attack not only by two Spanish newspapers, but also by almost every printed and electronic Russian mass media source out there, including the central TV channel. All of them kept repeating the exact same nonsense published in Spain, without bothering to check its veracity.

Back then: there were two things that impressed us. The first thing was the fact that more than two hundred sailors stood up in defense of their former boss. The second was that none of the Spanish journalists who had written so much about this story had never even made a single attempt to contact any of the people involved in it.  

We did the job for them anyway. You allege that "Kalunga" was a phantom-company with no ships at all? Well, we contacted one of the "ghost ship captains" from the company. That is what he said to PRAVDA:

I, captain Sergei Melnikov, worked in the company "Kalunga" with several hundred other sailors from Ukraine, Russia, Latvia and Lithuania. Therefore I cannot understand the statements made by Mr. Fernando Martínez in EL PAIS according to which the company "Kalunga" supposedly had neither ships, nor crews.

I am acquainted with Mr. Fernando Martínez and I know very well his older brother, Don Manolo. The sailors of our company respected him and have the best memories of him.

I was the captain of Rio Mbini and sailed on this ship from Riga to Bata. The ship, as far as I know, was used for sabotage between the ports of Duala in Cameroon and Bata and Malabo in Equatorial Guinea in the late 90s.

While I was the captain of this ship, all the ship documentation of Rio Mbini was issued to the name of "Kalunga". In my personal ship book, as well as in the ship books of the other members of the crew, the name of this company appeared as our place of work.

I remember gifting Don Manolo a dagger, which I made from the remains of a German bayonet found in Stalingrad. So I want to address Don Manolo: your brother is saying strange things. According to his words, - if they are, in fact, his and not another fabrication by Mr. Irujo, to which we, the sailors of "Kalunga", have grown accustomed over the last three years-, the ships of Martínez Hermanos sailed by themselves, without a crew.

Didn't you know that the ship documents and the personal ship books of the sailors that worked with you were issued to "Kalunga"?

And the replacement parts for Motu Oveng and Katya M, did they arrive to you from the vacuum? They were sent from Russia and Ukraine and arrived to Equatorial Guinea with documentation from "Kalunga". I am a witness to this, as on several occasions I was in charge of formalizing them.

Besides I do not know where does the notion that "Kalunga" was a fishing company comes from. Apparently, it must be an inaccuracy. I myself have worked many years in one of the biggest USSR fishing companies and on several occasions offered our ship owner Vladimir Borisovich Kokorev to get into the fishing business. He declined on principle to take part in this business, preferring to transport fish.

Life has proven the validity of this specialization. Industrial fishing in big factory-ships, built in the USSR, has proven to be an unreliable and economically unjustifiable business.