The Civil Guard tried to tap the phones of Elisabet Comín, sister of the former Catalan councilor Toni Comín, and of the journalist Lluna Baltasar, whom investigators point out in their reports as the “secretary” of the former president Carles Puigdemont within the so-called Consell of the Republic, the independence entity that the leader of Junts pilots from Brussels. On March 12, 2020, the armed institute asked the National Court to intervene in the telephone conversations and data traffic of the mobile terminals of both within the Democratic Tsunamic case, according to the summary documentation that EL PAÍS has had. However, Judge Alejandro Abascal, then a reinforcement in the Central Investigative Court 6 headed by Manuel García-Castellón, stopped the agents' claims after prosecutor Miguel Ángel Carballo objected due to the lack of “indications”, of “motivation” and “proportionality”.
At that time, the Civil Guard had already been investigating for almost half a year who was behind the Tsunami Democràtic platform, which encouraged protests after the Supreme Court ruling in October 2019 that condemned the political leaders of the processes for the illegal referendum of October 1, 2017. The agents had promoted a broad mobile intervention – approved by the court in an open case for terrorism crimes – to try to reach the top of the movement, in which the magistrate would place then to Puigdemont and the general secretary of ERC, Marta Rovira. These taps were made progressively, as new names appeared in the wiretaps, and included politicians such as David Fernández and Quim Arrufat, former CUP deputies, and Albano Dante, former leader of Podemos in Catalonia.
In this way, on March 12, 2020, the Civil Guard sent a comprehensive 208-page report to the court where it put six new names on the table to monitor: among them, those of Elisabet Comín and Lluna Baltasar. In the police document, the investigators highlighted the closeness of both to the hard core of the secessionist leadership and explained to the magistrate that they had reached them through the “independence activist” Xavier Vidal, whom they described as an alleged “organizer of the acts of Tsunami”. But none of these three (Comín, Baltasar and Vidal) appear in the final report of the armed institute incorporated into the summary last November. The judge also does not mention them in the order issued a few weeks ago to charge the dozen defendants in the summary with terrorism – a resolution appealed by the Prosecutor's Office, which rules out this type of crimes and considers that there is no evidence against Puigdemont and Rovira.
When trying to justify the intervention of Elisabet Comín's mobile phone, the Civil Guard presented several facts that they considered to be indications of her alleged relationship with Tsunami. The agents explained that the suspect had “a series of conversations” with Vidal, whose terminal had already been tapped, in which she expressed her “concern” about “security” and “logistics” in a series of organized events. by the independence movement in France at the beginning of 2020 and to which Puigdemont and Comín attended, both fleeing justice. Along these lines, they emphasize that the sister had “trust” in her interlocutor, who led a group of “volunteers” for the events, and made statements such as: “I want to have the guarantee that the president and Toni are protected.” .
The agents added that Elisabet Comín shared “the theses of radical Catalan secessionism”; She spread messages on Twitter about Tsunami protest acts, such as the blockade of the Barcelona airport; she showed “a constant zeal for taking extreme security measures in the communications” that she maintained; and published messages on networks that “communicate with the independence theses” and that, “on many occasions, serve as a loudspeaker for the secessionist proclamations issued from the account of the Consell of the Republic and of reference figures for Catalan secessionism, such as Carles Puigdemont. , Toni Comín or Jordi Sànchez.”
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“With all the above, the influential role that Elisabet Comín has with respect to the fled political leaders who currently make up the leadership of the Consell de la República is evident,” the Civil Guard added in its report, which emphasized about her: “[Tiene] direct relationship in the planning and organization of all the projects developed within the Consell, whose ideological program has as its ultimate goal the disconnection from the central State through unilateral means. The person under investigation has a relevant position within the well-deserved Consell because she is the sister of the former councilorwho together with Puigdemont and Clara Ponsatí are leading the worthy entity, which has shown its support for the actions orchestrated by Tsunami.”
To try to justify the tapping of the cell phone of the journalist Lluna Baltasar, whom they consider “a very relevant person due to her position in the Consell de la República”, the armed institute argued that Vidal had referred to her in some conversations – “reason by which the person under investigation would try to make an approach to it”—and that he had spread messages from Puigdemont, the Consell and Tsunami on Twitter. “Lluna Baltasar would be within Puigdemont's closest circle of trust and, therefore, within the environment of the management staff of the Consell per la República,” the researchers state. They considered intervening in her communications a measure “of utmost importance and significance”: “Due to her direct relationship with the acts that are being developed within the Consell. And, consequently, due to its proximity to any information of interest it can handle regarding the Consell, having also shown in the past its support for the Tsunami platform in pursuit of the achievement of an independent Catalan State, supporting its radical stance of social confrontation in against the State and national sovereignty.”
However, the prosecutor opposed these punctures until more evidence was provided against Elisabet Comín and Lluna Baltasar. In this way, when Alejandro Abascal, then a reinforcement magistrate in Central Court 6, resolved the Civil Guard's request, he did not authorize the intervention of their communications.
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