The discovery that Jonan Etxaide had secretly accessed Amaia Salazar’s computer turns a trusted working relationship into a source of suspicion. Internal Affairs established that he had connected remotely as many as twenty times in a single month, reaching Amaia’s email and stored folders and copying files. Because the procedure required both authorization and access to the computer from within the police station, the activity could not easily be dismissed as an accidental technical intrusion. Its timing also placed Jonan in possession of information connected to a compromised search, although Amaia resisted the conclusion that his access meant betrayal.

How the Access Was Discovered

Internal Affairs raised the matter during an interview with Amaia. Inspector Clemos was seated behind the desk, attempting to control the meeting, while Amaia chose to remain standing rather than accept the chair opposite him. The investigators first explained that Garrues, the computer specialist who examined Jonan’s computer from the Elizondo station, had found evidence of the access. Their opening question concerned whether Jonan, as Amaia’s assistant and a capable computer user, might have helped her with technical matters. She acknowledged that he had done so regularly.

Amaia initially described only one specific instance: she had asked Jonan to create an email account. He did this in person and advised her to change the password, which she later did. That remembered, openly authorized assistance became an uneasy contrast with what the specialists had uncovered. Their examination showed that Jonan had accessed Amaia’s computer remotely up to twenty times during the preceding month.

What the Technical Evidence Established

The connections were made through TeamViewer. Jonan had reached Amaia’s email and some of the folders where she kept it, and had copied files. The specialists stressed that this method required both computers to be switched on and the person at the computer being controlled to authorize the connection by entering a key. Since Jonan regularly worked in Amaia’s office, he had routine physical access to the setting in which the connection could be established; Amaia nevertheless said she had never seen him touch her computer.

That distinction mattered. The investigation did not describe a remote connection that could occur invisibly from anywhere, or a harmless operation that might happen by chance. The computer had to be prepared for remote control and the visit had to be accepted at the receiving machine. Amaia’s knowledge of Jonan’s technical competence and his normal presence in her office therefore explained how access might have been possible, but did not explain why he had used it without telling her. The repeated connections and copied material made the intrusion a pattern rather than a single ambiguous incident.

The Connection to the Compromised Search

The computer discovery gained weight when Internal Affairs linked Jonan’s access to the advance knowledge that had undermined a search. Amaia had already suspected that someone from her Elizondo station, and specifically someone on her own team, had warned the person who was to be searched. The search order focused on a particular file, which was destroyed before the search in what its owner called a cleanup. The investigators stated that Jonan had accessed Amaia’s email the night before and again that morning. From those visits, they reasoned that he could have learned about the order.

Amaia did not accept that the timing proved his purpose. She suggested that Jonan might have accessed the computer to leave a file for her, perhaps photographs too large to send by ordinary means. The specialists answered that the remote-control procedure required deliberate installation and authorization, not an accidental connection. They also emphasized that Jonan had accessed the computer repeatedly and had never told her. Amaia denied that he had disclosed the activity. Her defense of him persisted even as the facts narrowed the room for an innocent explanation.

The episode’s force lies in the gap between what the evidence established and what it could not establish. The access gave Jonan the opportunity to see information about the search; the timing made that opportunity directly relevant to the leak. But Amaia did not know why he had entered the computer, what he had copied, or whether the search information explained all twenty connections. When Inspector Iriarte later observed that the timing fit the search order, Amaia still insisted that there might be another explanation and said she wanted the discovery to be an error.

What the Discovery Leaves Behind

The later examination of Jonan’s files made the computer intrusion more consequential than a question of workplace privacy. In a folder bearing Amaia’s surname, she found images of her twin sister’s empty coffin and of the bones left after the desecration at the church in Arizkun, including her sister’s remains. The same folder contained enlarged sections of a photograph of the coat Rosario had worn when she fled, as well as maps marking possible escape routes on foot from the cave at Arri Zahar. Jonan’s stored material showed how closely he had followed several strands of Amaia’s investigation, though it did not by itself settle what he had intended by accessing her computer.

His scenario file also contained addresses for the infants who had died in suspected cases of sudden infant death that the team had investigated. Jonan had added Amaia’s sister but removed Yolanda Berrueta’s children. When Amaia reconstructed the map, she found that the victim locations, considered alongside the river, suggested a pattern following the course of the Baztán River rather than simply a route along a major road. The discovery of the remote access thus frames a painful reversal: the trusted colleague whose computer expertise had helped the team also possessed, and had secretly gathered, information from Amaia’s own machine. Jonan was dead, and the evidence could reveal what he had accessed without giving Amaia a chance to ask him why.