The heads of the Department of the Interior of the Generalitat and the Mossos d’Esquadra have assured this Friday that the work of the autonomous police was exemplary this Thursday despite not having managed to arrest the former president The Catalan leader of the Catalan government, Carles Puigdemont, is facing an arrest warrant. The police leadership claims that they did not know that Puigdemont had been in Barcelona for days before the investiture session and that they did not arrest him to avoid security problems with the thousands of protesters who had turned up on Thursday for the welcome ceremony for the pro-independence leader. The officers’ work is said to have been “correct” and appropriate, despite the fact that 24 hours after his escape they do not know his whereabouts. According to the Minister of the Interior, Joan Ignasi Elena, the force was not “prepared” to deal with Puigdemont’s “improper” behaviour.
The acting Minister of the Interior, Joan Ignasi Elena, appeared this Friday alongside the Director General of the Police, Pere Ferrer, and the Chief Commissioner of the Mossos, Eduard Sallent, to give explanations about one of the most notorious failures of the police force after they were unable to arrest Puigdemont at a public event held in the centre of Barcelona that was supposedly guarded by hundreds of officers. None of the three leaders will resign, they explained in a press conference that lasted more than two and a half hours, and in which the faces of the protagonists were full of serious faces.
Sallent has assured that until Thursday, minutes before the event of the former president at the Arc del Triomf in Barcelona, the police force had no information on his whereabouts. This version contrasts with that offered in the last two days by other police officials, who did not rule out that Puigdemont had been in Spain for days. The commissioner has guaranteed that if they had known where he was hiding they would have arrested him before the event. The second analysis of Sallent, and the leadership of Mossos, is that if Puigdemont was going to appear in Barcelona it was with the intention of trying to participate in the investiture session. “We did not believe that he was going to flee the place,” Sallent has also admitted. The third variable that the chief commissioner wanted to make clear is that at no time was “agreed with either Puigdemont or his entourage” on the moment of arresting the fugitive.
Chief Commissioner Eduard Sallent has defended that the plan was to arrest Puigdemont “in the most suitable place” and has started an intervention in which he has limited himself to giving his reasons for the 602 Mossos The police who were destined for the area around the Catalan Parliament did not find him. Sallent has stated that the first news of Puigdemont’s whereabouts was when he appeared accompanied by “a mass of people and authorities who hold electoral positions and who have responsibility with the institutions.” From that moment on, they saw how he gave a speech that lasted five minutes and left the stage accompanied by his lawyer, Gonzalo Boye, and the general secretary of Junts per Catalunya, Jordi Turull. “At that moment we tried to approach, but a mass of people formed a wall and we could not access. The events occurred quickly. Mr. Puigdemont and Turull put on a straw hat, got into a car with a wheelchair in the passenger seat and fled,” said the highest police officer. The vehicle was lost, thanks to the fact that they benefited from a traffic light on the Paseo de la Circunvalación at the height of Ramon Trias Fargas street. Mossos who were chasing the car were unable to jump the red light. With Puigdemont gone, the Jaula device was activated, but it was not enough to arrest Puigdemont.
The chief commissioner of the Mossos d’Esquadra, Eduard Sallent, admits that he has no information on the current whereabouts of former Catalan president Carles Puigdemont and that “if he had had it” he would have been arrested already. Sallent was very angry and strongly attacked the two Catalan police officers arrested for helping Puigdemont escape: “These gentlemen are police officers, they have duties and they have compromised the work of the entire force.” Sallent has not ruled out that there are more Mossos that they collaborated with the former president and announced internal investigations and files. He also admitted that he knew that some of them used their free time to act as bodyguards for Puigdemont. And he added that he could not make them change their attitude in an activity that was carried out outside Spain and in the agents’ free time.
Puigdemont’s escape was ruled out by the police
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The chief commissioner of the Mossos d’Esquadra, Eduard Sallent, admits that the new escape of the former Catalan president Carles Puigdemont was on the table in the design of the operations, but it was ruled out. “Puigdemont’s arrival on Thursday was more like what Jimmy Jump does [un conocido provocador de estadios de fútbol] that upon the return of a former president of the Generalitat,” he denounced.
Sallent has admitted that the Mossos believed that Puigdemont was going to enter the Ciutadella and that they were going to proceed to arrest him inside the park. “He is a former president of the Generalitat, he is not a Jodorovich (in reference to a well-known criminal clan in Barcelona),” he justified. The commissioner has clarified that last week he designed the police operation with three objectives: “To guarantee order and public safety; to guarantee constitutional order and, therefore, that the investiture plenary could be held and, finally, to arrest Puigdemont.” Sallent has justified that in the vicinity of the park there were antagonistic concentrations (one of them was of Vox militants and did not reach fifty demonstrators). The chief commissioner has also warned that the Mossos had to repel, using pepper spray, the attempt to access the Parliament by pro-independence activists in a demonstration where he has maintained that “there was violence.” The police have previously dispersed much larger attempts to gain access to the Parliament, and Thursday was one of the exceptional occasions in which they used this type of gas. The commissioner has taken credit for having managed to hold the plenary session and keep the protesters at bay, although “the arrest” of Puigdemont was not achieved. “It was a difficult day in which we gave our all,” he concluded. Sallent blames some Junts leaders for helping the fugitive, but only Jordi Turull will be called to testify and it is not expected that other personalities will have to give explanations.
“We Mossos do not resign, we are civil servants. We are appointed and dismissed. In my case, I was appointed and dismissed by the Minister of the Interior,” he argued. The chief commissioner does not rule out Puigdemont remaining in Barcelona and thinks that the Junts entourage is not credible. Turull has precisely assured this Friday that Puigdemont is already in Brussels and that on Tuesday he was already in Barcelona. “I cannot believe the gentleman [Turull] who accompanied Puigdemont in his escape,” the chief commissioner maintained.
The acting Minister of the Interior, Joan Ignasi Elena, has attacked Puigdemont and Junts: “Yesterday [este jueves] The intention was to blow up an investiture session with a campaign on social media with unfair and false attacks about disproportions in the police operation. Yesterday, the police had to arrest a person who was an authority in the country, had been the highest authority in the country and, therefore, the Mossos. There was an investiture session and there were demonstrations around the Parliament.” Elena continued: “Yesterday they wanted to attack the current Government to leave it out of the independence movement and place it with the Spanish movement just because they don’t like what it has decided. This is not building or having a State mentality. People are not used, nor are entities, and citizens cannot be extras in a deception. It’s worth deceiving and playing with feelings.”
Elena says that “nobody is prepared” for Puigdemont’s disappearance yesterday and announces an investigation and an analysis to determine who is responsible. Meanwhile, the Mossos are already drafting the report requested by Judge Pablo Llarena, in which they will explain why Puigdemont remains at large.
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