The Barcelona Court has imposed a harsh sentence on the former interior minister Miquel Buch for having provided an escort to Carles Puigdemont when he was already in Belgium and without being authorized to do so. The sentence dictates for Buch the sentence of four and a half years in prison as the author of the crimes of embezzlement and embezzlement of public funds and a disqualification from holding public office for the next 20 years. The severe sentence is made public at a time when the investiture of Pedro Sánchez depends on the votes of Junts, the party of Carles Puigdemont – and also of Miquel Buch -, which has been at the forefront of the talks and has demanded an amnesty for all people affected in criminal and civil cases arising from the process.
The court considers it proven that Buch arbitrarily hired Mossos sergeant Lluís Escolà – an agent who helped Puigdemont flee to Belgium after the DUI – as a security adviser, in order to provide “remunerative cover for the function of personal protection and security” of the ex-president, despite the lack of authorization for this and with a salary of 52,712 euros. The court also imposed a sentence of four years in prison and 19 years of disqualification to the sergeant. Buch criticized the speed with which the sentence was written and said he would appeal. “We will appeal because I am convinced of what we did and anyone who sees the trial knows that this result is unfair”, and he denounced that “in just one month” a sentence of “more than 80 pages” has already been written. “It feels like there was a lot of haste to condemn me,” added the ex-counselor.
The sentence, which was effectively written in a single month because August is unworkable, justifies the imposition of harsh penalties against Buch for having broken “the duties and obligations of the position he held”. The Prosecutor’s Office asked for 7 years in prison for Buch and finally the court has imposed the sentence in its upper half. The events date back to June 2018, when after the uprising of 155 Puigdemont requested the prerogatives that corresponded to him as ex-president, among which were those of an escort service. The Ministry of the Interior, in the hands of Grande-Marlaska, denied it because it considered that the requirements were not met, taking into account that the former president was prosecuted by the 1- O. The Minister of the Interior conveyed the requests and in the face of the last refusal signed Sergeant Lluís Escolà as advisor. The sergeant, a person close to the ex-president, provided him with protection services during the days off that he was chaining together from festive days and holidays that he accumulated at the Mossos. The sergeant’s presence at Waterloo was no surprise. He himself “showed off” his work in several tweets that are included in the sentence. “41 weeks in charge of the Most Honorable President Carles Puigdemont. As long as it’s not legal, it will be done legitimately,” he wrote.
During the trial, both Buch and Escolà and several members of the Interior leadership warned that it could not be considered that the sergeant was acting as an escort because he did not have the equipment – ??gun, defense and bulletproof vest – to do so. The court replied that it is possible to act as an escort without equipment and reproached the agent that his action “cannot be at the service of a private cause or partisan interests”.
