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Javier de Murga |
May, 1996. Javier and I were sharing an apartment in Estepona, southern Spain. We had been following a particularly gruesome news story for a few days concerning three teenage girls who had been abducted and murdered. All three were found buried in a field near Valencia. Each had been raped. Two had been decapitated. The third teenager, whose body was found rolled in a rug, had had her throat cut. The Spanish public were outraged. The police soon captured a youth – a thirteen year old - and claimed they had one of the murderers. A second youth - the eighteen year old leader - vanished. However, the prosecution soon realised it had no case against the young man in custody: he could not have raped the women since he was not yet producing semen of his own. Further, multiple semen samples were taken from their bodies. All that the youth could tell the police was that his friend had arranged to find young women for some men whom, he himself, had never met. To then deliver the women to these men and get paid for the task. He never saw the exchange. Nor had he seen his own friend since the bodies were discovered. It became clear that this child had not murdered these women; that he was a stooge.
It was a horrific tale but, such terrors occur. There then followed a most sinister twist, reported on the news. A senior police officer in the Guardia Civil had entered police headquarters and removed evidence: the same bloodstained rug that had been wrapped about one of the murdered women. This was no ordinary rug, but a fine Persian tapestry, one quite unique in design and weave. A most expensive luxury item that few but the very rich could afford. It was a crucial forensic piece of evidence, one that offered a strong lead to the weaver, the seller, the buyer, the murder scene and eventually, hopefully, the culprits. For a senior officer to remove evidence so brazenly was remarkable.
I said so to Javier, who sagely continued to chew on his empty pipe as we watched the news. Afterwards, he filled his pipe and, as he smoked, told me that this was not at all unusual where people corrupted by power and wealth were concerned ...and he told me a story, his story, of a murder most vile.
Back in the 1950's Javier left his art studio in Marbella to travel the Orient. Don Javier de Murga (to give him his title) was blue blooded: his father was the Marquis de Murga, from the Basque country. The title permitted doors to be opened more readily for Javier, allowing him access to the elite and wealthy. Thus it was that Javier found himself and other guests being entertained by a wealthy sheik prince, at his home in Iran. One day there was a commotion. A guest had made a sexual approach on a lady of the prince's household. This insult to the Prince's hospitality was unforgivable. The prince determined to have the male guest put to death. The man was to have his hands and feet cut off and cauterised then his body run through with a pointed stake. (Through the anus and out the throat.) Impaled on the stake so, the man would then be afixed in the central courtyard, where he would die a slow, cruel death in the sun.
On becoming aware of this, Javier requested a boon of the prince. Javier told him that this man had saved his life and that he wished the prince to release him from his sentence of death in light of this. The prince, impressed by Javier's mien and argument agreed and freed the perpetrator into Javier's custody. Javier and the man immediately left the Prince's estate.
The man thanked Javier profusely then, made him an offer. To travel with him to Switzerland where he would show him an elite circle of powerful men and provide him an insight into their nefarious activities. Activities no journalist had ever reported on. Intrigued, Javier agreed to go. So began a most harrowing adventure.
Javier's guide worked for the CIA. This permitted him access to persons of influence, those in power, especially. Thus, power brokers; wealthy entrepreneurs; bankers; arms traders; drugs barons; etc. knew him and the power behind him. The man was the CIA's representative in a global Power VIP network. In Switzerland, Javier was taken to a location (that he refused to give the location of) where he was introduced to a wealthy host and gathering of other men of power. It was a black tie occasion with fine food and wines, all silver service. After an excellent meal, the host directed his guests toward a glass wall cubicle set in the centre of the room. It was time for the after dinner entertainment. Javier described steps inside that cubicle that led to a room below the stone flag floor. A bed - its only furniture - was beside the opening. The guests arranged themselves about the outside of this 'fish tank', cigars and digestifs in hand. This arrangement allowed everyone to see the visages of his fellow guests. The spectacle then began. Up the steps, came two Negroid men and a Caucasian woman. They at first proceeded to entertain the on watchers with sexual acts, the woman very much controlling the scenarios on and about the bed. Then, it changed. The men started beating the woman with intense violence. She screamed for mercy. To her assailants. To the men watching beyond the glass. To no avail.
"Whatever you do, make sure you smile," said the CIA man in an aside to Javier, "else you'll find yourself in there with her".
Javier witnessed the men strangle the woman and their performing necrophilia on the corpse before finally, dragging the cadaver down the steps. The entertainment was over.
Javier told me how he smiled, and smiled, to save his life: to allay any suspicions amongst those powerful onwatchers stood all about the cubicle, watching the sex and violence within. Watching the watchers without. He was shaken by the experience and this case of the three Spanish teenage girls had brought it back to the fore.
"The general public are ignorant of the horror ...and such horrors are often enacted," the CIA agent afterwards told Javier.
"So they are," Javier told me. "It goes on ...and on".
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