The judge Manuel García-Castellón has decided to raise the case of Carles Puigdemont as soon as possible to the Supreme Court so that from there the instruction on the possible connection of the former Catalan president with Democratic Tsunami, a move that encouraged the riots in Catalonia in protest of the sentence 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 brought by the Prosecutor’s Office so that the case will be transferred to the ordinary courts of Barcelona and the Junts leader and the general secretary of ERC will be dismissed from the case , Marta Rovira.
As Puigdemont is a member of the European Parliament, he is sued before the Supreme Court. Now the Criminal Chamber of the High Court, presided over by Manuel Marchena, will have to decide whether to accept the instruction or send it back to García-Castellón so that he can try to carry out all possible steps before his referral.
This issue comes to the fore amid accusations of judicial warfare 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 him from being prosecuted former Catalan president.
In fact, in the text registered in Congress, the amnesty included the crimes of terrorism linked to the process, except if there is a final sentence. This would force the courts to dismiss this case.
The magistrate’s letter to the Supreme Court points out that Puigdemont would be at the “highest apex of the Democratic Tsunami organization” and adds that his position as former president and leader from Brussels of independence gives him “a position of unquestionable authority”.
As the judge explains, there are indications that allow us to infer his participation in the birth and planning of Tsunami’s actions, such as certain messages with the head of his office, Josep Lluís Alay. According to the judge, the seriousness of the events could be determined as public disorder caused by a terrorist organization.
According to his opinion, as a result of the Supreme Court ruling on the process, the blocking of critical State infrastructures, such as Barcelona-el Prat airport and the control tower of Enaire de Barcelona-Gavà. In relation to this last point, 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 Democrátic had achieved its objective of preventing the change of shift of the air controllers of the installation, “this would not only have caused economic damage, but could have had a catastrophic result with unpredictable consequences for the people who at that time were on a flight on board the aircraft in the area subject to 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 suffered a heart attack. For this reason, he considers it necessary to find out if the collapse of the airport could have intervened in any way in the fatal outcome. “In other words, it would be about ruling 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 wee hours of the morning of the 15th with a result of multiple injuries, including both agents of the forces and security forces of the State and civilians. Faced with this scenario, García-Castellón wants the Supreme Court to appoint an investigator to find out who were the injured – passengers, flight crew, companions or airport staff – and if their injuries can be attributed in any way to the organizers of Democratic Tsunami.
In his motivated statement, the judge explains that at this procedural moment the classification cannot be considered in exclusive terms, but rather that the seriousness of the facts and their complexity allow them to be subsumed under several offenses that would fit into acts of terrorism in the sense provided for by European Union Law.
The magistrate affirms that the violent acts at El Prat airport were an “illegal action” because there was no legal call, among other things because demonstrations and gatherings in a critical facility cannot be authorized what is Barcelona airport like?
