The report that the Mossos d’Esquadra have given to the instructor of the processSupreme Court judge Pablo Llarena, makes self-criticism and recognizes “errors in the device” to arrest the former president of the Generalitat Carles Puigdemont on the day of Salvador Illa’s investiture as president of the Generalitat, on August 8. The document, advanced by The Confidential The report, which EL PAÍS has had access to, describes how the Catalan police prepared a device that would allow the holding of Illa’s investiture session to be secured, control the street gatherings and arrest Puigdemont. The Mossos consider the first two missions to have been accomplished but the last mission to have failed. “There was no opportunity to proceed with his arrest,” the report states. It explains how the drone that was following the former president of the Generalitat changed location when the former president He left the stage from which he gave his speech, while the police officer assigned to the area “was unable to access the channel” to warn his colleagues and then lost track of the car in which Puigdemont left.
Llarena had asked the Mossos and the Ministry of the Interior to report on the police operation deployed by the regional police in Barcelona on August 8, which was intended to comply with the arrest warrant for Puigdemont, who has been on the run since 2017 in Belgium and who is the subject of an arrest warrant from the Supreme Court. The judge also requested information “on the elements that determined its failure.” [en la detención de Puigdemont] from a technical police perspective.” In its report, the department headed by Fernando Grande-Marlaska informed Llarena that the former Catalan president was “not detected at any time” in the control devices established by the National Police and the Civil Guard on the border with France and that, despite the fact that they offered the Mossos the support of these bodies to find Puigdemont, they were not accepted.
In their report, the Mossos detail the operation they deployed to guarantee Illa’s investiture and arrest the former Catalan president. The document sent by the regional police indicates that, with all the information analysed, “at no time was it considered possible or probable that Mr Puigdemont could return to Catalonia and not have the determination to join the Parliament”. In other words, “that Mr Puigdemont would return to Spain and then flee was not considered a possibility”.
The Catalan police also detail their extensive operation to prevent Puigdemont from entering the Catalan Chamber “clandestinely”. The suspicions that the former president could enter, according to the Mossos, were “reinforced” after the “Parlament officials” did not facilitate a prior inspection to “rule out that […] had previously agreed to it.” “They requested a written communication from the Chief Commissioner of the General Police of the Mossos d’Esquadra, later indicating that the communication should be sent to the president from the Parliament and, finally, they indicated that the searches could not be carried out because there was no suitable staff,” he laments.
The operation on August 8 included, among other things, 600 officers, a helicopter and three drone units. The Mossos received the first information about Puigdemont at around 8.55 in a passage near Trafalgar Street. One of the eight officers assigned to the Passeig Lluís Companys area saw him enter the area where he addressed some 4,500 people at 8.56. At the end of the speech, he saw him go down some stairs, go into some tents and blend in with about fifty people wearing straw hats. The officer says how he was then “detected as a possible police officer” and “reprimanded by several citizens”. When he regained contact with what was happening, around 9.05, he saw Jordi Turull, secretary general of Junts, wearing a dark baseball cap. He then noticed that there were three vehicles stopped and observed how Puigdemont got into a white one and sat in the left back seat.
The officer, the report says, tried to use his communications equipment to warn the rest of the officers, but “was unable to access the channel” because “at that time, different communications were being transmitted by other police officers” and he decided to call his superior on his phone. This caused the rest of the officers to continue concentrating on the convoy of politicians heading to the Parliament, which did not include Puigdemont. Several people then tried to prevent him from reaching the vehicle, after which he ran off to be able to communicate the description to his superior.
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He then began to chase the car until a change of traffic lights prevented him from following it. According to the document, the agent also made a mistake when he reported the model of the vehicle, which he said was a Peugeot when in fact it was a Honda HRV. “This confusion was caused by the tension of the moment and by the fact that the agent was running after the vehicle,” it explains. At the same time, the Mossos also explain that the drone “changed location” and also focused on the convoy that was going to the Parliament. According to the images available to the police, the vehicle disappeared from sight on the Circumvallation promenade in Barcelona at 9.26.
The report ends by pointing out that Puigdemont could not be arrested when he appeared on the scene of the Paseo de Lluís Companys because that would have required “the use of considerable force, probably excessive and disproportionate” and recalls that what is expected is that the former president had addressed the Parliament. By not doing so, “there was no opportune moment to proceed” with his arrest despite this being the “will and determination” of the Catalan police.
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