Coup de effect of the National Court in the final phase of the negotiation of the amnesty law. The investigating judge Manuel García Castellón has formally accused the former Catalan president, Carles Puigdemont, and the general secretary of Esquerra Republicana de Catalunya (ERC), Marta Rovira, in the case against the Tsunami Democràtic platform for a crime of terrorism. Given his status as a judge, Puigdemont is offered to appear voluntarily in court before submitting his request to the European Parliament, while Rovira is already summoned as being directly investigated.
The formal accusation against both occurs on the eve of them becoming two of the beneficiaries of the amnesty negotiated by the PSOE with Junts and ERC to achieve the investiture of Pedro Sánchez. This Monday’s order will also mean that this future rule that will erase the criminal consequences of the ‘procés’ and its derivatives will affect 24 people investigated for terrorism: Puigdemont, Rovira, the other ten charged this Monday for Tsunami and the twelve prosecuted in the summary on the Committees for the Defense of the Republic (CDR), whose prosecution by the same investigating judge, García-Castellón, was confirmed last week by the Criminal Chamber of the National Court.
After urging last week that the Civil Guard present the final report on Tsunami in court, the judge points out for the first time the terrorist nature of the platform born in the heat of the ‘procés’ ruling in October 2019. A crime under the jurisdiction of central court that makes the instructor keep the case. Tsunami Democràtic, ditch García Castellón, “was a structured, hierarchical organization with a vocation for permanence (…) whose purpose was to subvert the constitutional order, economically and politically destabilize the State and seriously alter public order through massive social mobilization” . Accusations that, the judge maintains, would fit “from a provisional perspective” with the classification of terrorism or “terrorist public disorder.”
The magistrate’s decision comes just four days after the Civil Guard, in its final report on the platform that was the protagonist of the most serious incidents during the autumn of 2019, placed Rovira, who had fled to Switzerland for years, at the head of this organization as coordinator and facilitator, along with eight other people.
Against all of them, the armed institute highlighted its criminal responsibility by making individualized sections. However, the surprise is that in that report the Civil Guard did not give any prominent role to Puigdemont, but finally García Castellón has decided to also lead the case against the Junts leader.
Precisely, the second derivative of this unexpected movement by the judge is that, last Friday, he asked the Prosecutor’s Office of the National Court to rule on the accusation of the individuals indicated by the Civil Guard and 72 hours later the judge, without waiting or Even in response to the Public Ministry’s response, he decided to act alone and include Puigdemont in the case. The 33 pages of his order were forged this weekend, coinciding on a political level with the proximity of the agreement between Junts and PSOE.
“Leadership role”
In his resolution, García Castelló justifies the inclusion of Puigdemont in that he was informed at all times of the creation and objectives of Tsunami through his trusted man and advisor, the Barcelona historian Josep Lluís Alay, also investigated in the case. He maintains that the former president was aware of the movements of the newly created platform, including its birth in meetings that took place in Geneva between August 29 and 31, 2019.
Alay, the judge maintains, kept Puigdemont informed at all times of the Tsunami “coordination group”, as can be seen from personal agendas seized in another investigation. Some meetings in Switzerland that the leader of EH Bildu Arnaldo Otegi, whom the magistrate summons as a witness, would also have known.
García Castellón highlights that “Puigdemont’s leadership role in Tsunami” is also inferred from the conversations held with leaders of the platform with whom he “discusses the attitude that the Catalan political leaders are having in relation to the publication of the sentence of the ‘ processes'”.
An exchange of messages with one of the accused also this Monday, the businessman from Girona Josep Campmajó, is for the judge transcendental to implicate the former president in the platform of a violent nature. Campmajó wrote to him, according to the car: “Yesterday I was on the front line again. Both in BCN (Barcelona) and in GRN (Girona). My people well distributed.” “Either you (Puigdemont) and Tsunami take control or we will have to start managing the price of casualties.” To which Puigdemont responded: “We are trying to get the Government to get its act together.” And Campmajó added: “President… The deputies are screwed. People are stepping over them. The Government is scared…”. And the leader of Junts concluded: “True. And that is not good.”
«Voluntary appearance»
Given Puigdemont’s privileged status as a European parliamentarian, García-Castellón offers the fled former president the possibility of “appearing voluntarily” before requesting the request from Brussels. Thus, while waiting for Puigdemont to accept the invitation to testify voluntarily and with a lawyer, which is unlikely, the resolution agrees to cite as investigated Marta Rovira, Josep Lluís Alay, Oriol Soler, Xavier Vendrell, Marta Molina Álvarez, Josep Campmajó, Jesús Rodríguez, Jaume Cabani, Oleguer Serra and Nicola Flavio Giulio.
According to the investigation by the Civil Guard that has served as the basis for these accusations, the protests promoted by the platform in autumn 2019 against the Supreme Court ruling included street riots in numerous corners of Catalonia – particularly in Barcelona, around the Headquarters. of Police–, in addition to episodes such as the occupation of numerous Caixabank and Iberdrola offices (September 25 and 26, 2019); the takeover of El Prat airport with a hundred canceled flights and serious damage (October 14); the closure of the AP-7 highway connecting the Catalan community with France for 30 hours (November 11); or the blockade of the AP-8 that connects the Basque Country with French territory with a slow march of trucks (November 12).
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