Is Antonio Anglés alive? Did he manage to escape and reach Brazil via Ireland? Did he die jumping off a merchant ship before reaching Dublin or did he not jump ship and land unseen? These are questions that for thirty years have continued to weigh on those responsible for the Spanish security forces who have never given up any hypothesis. But the docuseries Anglés: historia de una fuga, broadcast in the last two weeks on La Sexta, has provided new testimonies that feed the possibility that the co-author with Miguel Ricart of the kidnapping, torture and murder of Miriam, Toñi and Desirée, the Alcàsser girls, stay alive.
The docuseries is based on the research that journalists Genar Martí and Jorge Saucedo have carried out in recent years: "It has been almost an obsession," they tell La Vanguardia. In 2018, these two professionals published the book El fugitiu (Vincle Editorial), an exhaustive investigative journalism work in which they detailed the steps taken by Anglés in his escape in January 1993, after the bodies were discovered, with testimonies never located and with abundant information in the hands of the Civil Guard. In that job they managed to speak with the captain of the City of Plymouth, Kenneth Farquharson Stevens, now a retired man in the south of the United Kingdom. On that ship Anglés boarded as a stowaway and that man confirmed it to the journalists.
That was in 2018. From then until now, they have found more evidence and witnesses that tip the balance towards the possibility that he is still alive. Genar Martí explains: “In our investigation, we discovered that an Irish journalist specializing in cases of missing persons was creating a kind of census of unidentified corpses. Most of them recovered from the Irish Sea. On that list there were three bodies that, due to the date they were found, the proximity to the port of Dublin and because they were male, deserved to be investigated.
The journalists brought these facts to the attention of the Spanish police: the existence of these three cases. They are currently being investigated. Two of them – from February 1, 1994 found in Dollymount Strand and another from July 10, 1996 found on Dalkey Island – “present more difficulties as they are buried in an area of unidentified remains in Glasnevin, the largest cemetery in Ireland. ”. Therefore, they would have to be exhumed to compare their DNA with that of Anglés. These checks must be made by the Garda to rule out that he drowned.
Genar Martí comments that, if the DNA tests confirm that none of these three bodies corresponds to Antonio Anglés, "we would have to focus on the testimony of Gerry McDonnell –a stevedore from the port of Dublin in 1993– the missing link to complete the history". This man, he adds, recounted for the first time "that he saw a stowaway with the physical characteristics of Anglés get off the City of Plymouth on the night of March 24, 1993 at 10:50 p.m.." His testimony is of great value because he was at the moment when two Garda officers boarded the freighter from the stern "while the stowaway jumped onto the quay from the bow and into the containers on the south quay of the port of Dublin".
He affirms that McDonell's words deny the information that has been confirmed that Anglés jumped into the sea to reach the coast by swimming but drowned in his attempt. "There is no evidence to corroborate this theory," he points out. However, the unpublished testimony that this docuseries brings to light “has led us to investigate the ships that left the days after March 24 from the port of Dublin. We have been able to verify that there were regular lines that connected Ireland with Brazil, Mexico, the United States and Uruguay”. Genar Martí warns him "we will never stop persecuting Antonio Anglés".
Who has also had his own opinion for some time about the possibility that Antonio Anglés is still alive is the Valencian journalist Joan Oleaque, author of the book Desde las tinieblas, un descent al caso Alcàsser (Péndulo). This journalist, who knew the Anglés family, values that the fugitive arrived on the ship bound for Ireland, “and logic has always indicated that he escaped, or was able to; he was carrying money to use to buy wills, and he was more than capable of disappearing by water or land in the area.” He adds that "as is known, he was searched for with little integrity in the Irish port, although something else was when the ship arrived in Liverpool."
Oleaque recalls that in his escape "he was always ahead of the security forces, who were not effective with such an extreme survivor, and that he has dedicated his life to fleeing, time and time again, as an almost natural way of proceeding, for which he constantly trained; This, together with a lot of lack of skill in the international police connection at the time, helped to make him disappear and to be considered potentially alive. He concludes that, in addition, Anglés "knew how to hide himself among people who were not criminals, he could try to fit out of that circle because, again, it is something that he has always wanted, although with very unequal success."
Is Antonio Angles alive? It cannot be stated emphatically, let alone that he is dead, because no evidence has been found to confirm it. Meanwhile, police and journalists continue to investigate.
