THE TRIAL BEGAN BEFORE ITS RECORDING

On the morning of 31 January 2019, in the First Section of the Provincial Court of Bizkaia, the trial began. The official recording — the trial record, because the law makes the audiovisual medium the record — began later. That difference, which should be impossible, is documented through three independent routes.

First: the files themselves. The first block of the official medium starts at 10:09:21 (metadata of A.39.3, verifiable by anyone). Second: the courtroom's own voice. In the first seconds of recording one hears — it is transcribed in this portal — "Very well, you are all set up" and, immediately after: "Sorry, because it now formally begins, as the base record is the video medium". The courtroom acknowledging, aloud, that what came before did not go on the record. Third: the sworn testimony of a person present (A.20), who describes that ungrabbed prior stretch as a moment of tension and intimidation directed at the accused, with references to his entry into prison.

What exactly happened in those invisible minutes cannot be known — that is precisely the point. A trial whose psychological opening occurs off the record cannot be reconstructed afterwards: not by the higher court, not by the expert, not by the historian. The official memory of the proceedings begins when the dynamic was already set.

And this was only the first cut. The morning would have more.