Father Sarasola

Father Sarasola is a priest whose pastoral authority and access to sensitive information make him a crucial, though discreet, ally to Amaia Salazar. By identifying himself as her confidential informant and bringing a repentant former member forward, he helps turn suspicions about a secret group into testimony about its practices and the fate of children.

Identity and Role

Father Sarasola operates at the intersection of religious life and the investigation into suspicious infant deaths. He is not presented as a police investigator; instead, he supplies information gathered through his own contacts and helps Amaia reach a witness whom the authorities might not otherwise have heard. His position carries risk: he warns that public disclosure of his involvement would create serious complications, and says his source would categorically deny having spoken to him.

The case also gives a broader view of the pastoral burden surrounding bereavement. A priest encountered by investigators speaks of a mother’s grief after the deaths of her children, describing maternal love and loss as forces that demand compassion while insisting that he cannot endorse her belief that the bodies have been removed from their graves. The scene reflects the difficult boundary between attending to grief and treating a claim as fact; the passage does not identify that priest by name.

Information Given to Amaia

During a briefing on the investigation, Amaia explains that a witness can corroborate Elena Ochoa’s account of a group active at Argi Beltz in the 1970s, where rituals close to Satanism included animal sacrifices. A separate, reliable informant has described similar practices at a house in Lesaka and a single priestly or ceremonial leader who moved between the two groups without living with either. Amaia also presents the informant’s account of a girl born at Argi Beltz who died in unexplained circumstances. Her parents claimed that Ainara Martínez Bayón had died of a stroke abroad, but Jonan Etxaide’s work indicated that she may never have left Spain; the expected death, autopsy, and burial records were absent.

When Amaia agrees to protect the source’s identity, she names Father Sarasola. Inspector Iriarte is visibly surprised. Sarasola had told her that a file concerning Doctor Berasategui’s practices had been found at a clinic. The material related to Berasategui’s investigations into what he called Matiz del mal, an inquiry into supposedly satanic, demonic, or malign elements associated with psychological disorders and varied practices. According to Sarasola, the files were removed from the country in a diplomatic pouch and transferred to the Vatican. He cautions that neither the Holy See nor the government is likely to acknowledge the transfer, and that the police could face repercussions if they made the matter public.

The Witness and the Ritual

After Amaia asks whether the promised witness is available, Father Sarasola confirms that the person is a repentant member of the group. He is waiting with Amaia in a car driven by his chauffeur when she goes directly to the matter of the witness. The meeting makes his role more than that of a source: he has brought a former participant into reach of the investigation, while allowing the policewoman to conduct the questioning.

When the witness covers his face and pleads, Sarasola rebukes him firmly as a fellow member. The man lowers his hands and looks at him with apprehension. He then describes the killing as a sacrifice to evil, specifically to Inguma: the child was to be deprived of air, in imitation of Inguma, and her body was to be surrendered as an offering. Sarasola does not supply the testimony himself; his brief intervention helps bring the witness to speak, and the confession gives concrete ritual content to the investigation’s suspicions.

Narrative Significance

Father Sarasola’s contribution links separate strands of evidence: the old groups associated with Argi Beltz and Lesaka, Doctor Berasategui’s dark research, the unexplained death of Ainara Martínez Bayón, and a surviving participant’s account of infant sacrifice. The chain depends on guarded, imperfect channels of knowledge. Sarasola’s warning about secrecy shows that the information is not simply available for official use, while his decision to bring the witness forward makes the investigation possible despite that constraint.

His role is defined by mediation rather than spectacle. He identifies what can be disclosed, protects a source whose testimony may be denied, and stands beside the former member without speaking in his place. Through him, religious authority appears both as a source of access and as a means of confronting a participant with the moral weight of what he has done. The evidence establishes Sarasola’s investigative importance, but does not specify what becomes of him after the witness’s account.