The judge Manuel García-Castellón has decided to raise the matter of Carles Puigdemont as soon as possible to the Supreme Court so that from there the instruction on the possible link of the Catalan ex-president with Democratic Tsunami, a movement that encouraged the disturbances in Catalonia in protest to the judgment of the process in October 2019.
The magistrate has chosen not to wait for the Criminal Chamber of the National Court to resolve the appeal filed by the Prosecutor’s Office so that the case is transferred to the ordinary courts of Barcelona and the leader of Junts and the general secretary are ruled out of the case. from ERC, Marta Rovira.
Since Puigdemont is a member of the European Parliament, he is qualified before the Supreme Court. Now, the Criminal Chamber of the High Court, chaired by Manuel Marchena, must decide whether to accept the instruction or return it to García-Castellón so that he can try to carry out all possible procedures before its referral.
This matter comes to the fore amid accusations of judicial war and criticism of the magistrate, who has requested protection from the General Council of the Judiciary.
García-Castellón included Puigdemont in the Tsunami case, opened in 2019, in the midst of negotiations between PSOE and Junts to support the investiture of Pedro Sánchez in exchange for promoting the amnesty law to prevent the former Catalan president from being judicially pursued.
In fact, in the text registered in Congress, terrorism crimes linked to the process were included in the amnesty, except if there is a final ruling. This would force the courts to shelve this matter.
The magistrate’s letter to the Supreme Court indicates that Puigdemont would be placed at the “highest vertex of the Tsunami Democràtic organization” and adds that his position as former president and leader of the independence movement from Brussels gives him “a position of unquestionable authority.”
According to the judge, there are indications that allow us to infer his participation in the birth and planning of the Tsunami actions, such as certain messages with the head of his office, Josep Lluís Alay. For the judge, the seriousness of the events could be determined as public disorders caused by an organization of a terrorist nature.
In his opinion, as a result of the Supreme Court’s ruling on the process, critical State infrastructures such as the El Prat airport and the Enaire control tower in Barcelona-Gavà were blocked. In relation to the latter, the magistrate highlights the “strategic importance of this objective, and the serious consequences that the success of the intended action could have had for the safety of national and international air traffic.”
The judge explains to the Supreme Court that if Tsunami Democràtic had achieved its objective of preventing the shift change of the facility’s air traffic controllers, “this would not only have caused economic damage, but could have had a catastrophic result with unforeseeable consequences for people.” “that at that moment they were in flight aboard the aircraft in the area under control, with the obvious risk and danger to their lives.”
García-Castellón also intends to include the death of a person who was at the airport and who suffered a heart attack. For this reason, he considers it necessary to find out if the collapse of the airport could have played a role in the fatal outcome in some way. “In other words, it would try to rule out that the death (…) could have been avoided on October 14, 2019,” the resolution states.
For the magistrate, it is relevant that the riots lasted until the early hours of the morning on the 15th, resulting in multiple injuries, including both agents of the security forces and bodies and civilians. Given this scenario, García-Castellón wants the Supreme Court to appoint an instructor to find out who the injured were – among travelers, flight crew, companions or airport staff – and if their injuries can be attributed in some way to the organizers. of the Democratic Tsunami.
In his reasoned presentation, the judge explains that at this procedural moment the classification cannot be considered in exclusive terms, but rather the seriousness of the facts and their complexity allow them to be subsumed into various infractions that would fit into acts of terrorism in the sense provided by law. of the European Union.
The magistrate maintains that the violent acts at the Prat airport were an “illegal action” because there was no legal call, among other things because demonstrations and gatherings cannot be authorized in a critical facility such as the Barcelona airport.
