Lluís Prenafeta, who was Jordi Pujol’s trusted man in his first years at the head of the Generalitat, has assured that he would put “both hands” on the fire for the judicial honorability of the former Catalan president and former leader of CiU, but only “a finger” by his eldest son, Jordi Pujol Ferrusola.
Prenafeta was the first general secretary of the Presidency of the Generalitat of Catalonia after the reestablishment of the institution after the dictatorship, a position he held between 1980 and 1990 and in which he became Pujol’s right-hand man and, as he defines himself, political “achiever” of the then president.
This is what he assured in an interview on El Suplement de Catalunya Ràdio, where Prenafeta reiterated his defense of the figure of the convergent ex-leader, considering that he “made a mistake” in confessing his hidden fortune in Andorra, a decision that, he suggested, ” it’s possible” that he would take to protect his family.
In the interview he has in fact assured that he himself warned Pujol on several occasions about his first-born: “He was told: president, Jordi (Pujol Ferrusola) is not doing well, there are things that seem… I had told him myself.” , because they told me so. And one day he told me: don’t talk to me about Jordi anymore. I warned him with a small mouth, because I didn’t know anything concrete.”
Asked then if he would put his hand on the fire for Pujol’s judicial honorability, Prenafeta was forceful. “Totally. For Pujol I would leave both hands because he has never put a euro in his pocket.” And for his eldest son too? “No,” he responded. “But maybe I would put a finger on it.”
The Prosecutor’s Office requests nine years in prison for the former Catalan president and between eight and 29 for his seven children – the eldest for the first-born, Jordi Pujol Ferrusola -, whom he accuses of amassing a fortune with illicit payments from businessmen and later laundering them through financial tricks. .
The case, which dates back to 2012 and took flight with Jordi Pujol’s confession about the hidden family fortune in 2014, has been ready to be tried since June 2021, when Judge Santiago Pedraz issued the order to open an oral trial against Pujol. and his seven children for crimes of illicit association and money laundering; However, the trial date is still pending.
On the other hand, at 84 years old, Prenafeta – who years after leaving the Generalitat was convicted, in the framework of the Pretoria case, for illegal commissions linked to his business activity and briefly went to prison after making a pact with the prosecution – has explained that He is “ruined”, he has denied that he was convicted “for corruption”, but for “very legal commissions”, and he has made it clear that as secretary general “I never received a commission, neither in white, nor red nor black.”
Prenafeta has been critical of current Catalan politics: he has described President Pere Aragonès as “applied, but lazy”; He has considered that Artur Mas made the “mistake” of “killing CDC”; and after defining himself as an independentist, he has warned that this can only be achieved through “confrontation” with the State and not “based on demonstrations.”