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Dismissed Civil Guard colonel Diego Pérez de los Cobos informed the Spanish interior ministry that he had been commissioned by a Madrid judge to investigate the large International Women's Day march at the beginning of the coronovirus emergency - and then he later reported that the judge had asked for the case to be put on hold during Spain's state of alarm called to combat Covid-19. But this was not correct.

Press agency Efe, quoting interior ministry sources, report that De los Cobos, then head of the Civil Guard command in Madrid, communicated through then-deputy operational director, Laurentino Ceña that the judge had asked the force, in its role as judicial police, to investigate the relationship of the events of 8th March with the coronavirus contagion and whether the Spanish government knew the risks.

A few days later, according to the same sources, De los Cobos informed the ministry that the judge, Carmen Rodriguez Medel, had asked them to halt the process and nothing more was to be done until after Spain's 'state of alarm' emergency status had been lifted.

Up to this point the Interior ministry had been informed of the actions of the Civil Guard. However, according to the sources, it was only when officials heard about through the media, that they learned that a report had subsequently been prepared and delivered to the judge.

The digital newspaper El Confidencial has published a note signed by the Civil Guard director, María Gámez, stating that the former head of the Madrid command was dismissed for "failing to report on the development of investigations and actions carried out by the Civil Guard, in the operational and judicial police context, to obtain knowledge".

The Spanish ministry insists that neither the minister, Fernando Grande-Marlaska, nor the general directorate of the Civil Guard wanted the report or requested it. Rather than wanting to know the details, they only asked to be informed of actions that were being carried out.

And the sources reiterate that it is "usual" to communicate the development of the actions, but not their content.