The judge of the National Court Manuel García Castellón believes that the first signs of terrorism regarding the former president of the Generalitat Carles Puigdemont and the general secretary of ERC, Marta Rovira, have been “reinforced” after the practice of proceedings, such as everything regarding the altercations at the Prat airport promoted by the Tsunami Democràtic (TD) platform in response to the procés ruling handed down by the high court in 2019.
This has been stated in an order rejecting the appeal presented by the Prosecutor’s Office against its decision to send a reasoned statement to the Supreme Court to investigate this case regarding twelve people, including these two independence leaders. For the magistrate, they could have been behind it as organizers and promoters of TD.
The promotion of this case, open since 2019, has coincided with the presentation and processing of an amnesty law proposal promoted by the PSOE together with the independence parties ERC and Junts to favor all those accused linked to the process.
Faced with the argument of the Prosecutor’s Office that there is no new evidence to expand the investigation to a crime of terrorism, the magistrate analyzes the documentation provided by the Mossos D’esquadra in relation to the events that occurred at the El Prat airport. October 14, 2019.
Likewise, García-Castellón considers that the death of a person due to the events in El Prat must be taken into account, as well as the indictments of several national police officers who appeared as a private accusation and who were injured in the incidents that took place in Barcelona. on October 18 of that year.
The judge wields the documentation that has arrived since November that reactivated the case. For example, it reminds the public ministry of the report sent by Aena and Enaire, in which it was confirmed that Tsunami Democràtic /TD effectively blocked access to the JT Barcelona-El Prat Airport Control control tower, and the Center of Barcelona-Gavá Air Traffic Control.
The police also reported that that day the controllers were prevented from arriving at the established time to start their work. “This action was the result of deliberate planning, urged and publicized through its social networks by TD,” explains the judge.
The order insists that this action “had a direct impact on air traffic, and was intended to affect the safety of air traffic, in a control tower that covers an area that reaches from Murcia to the border with France.”
As already pointed out by the Mossos d’Esquadra, the agents of this body had to act, according to the magistrate, managing to open a way that allowed the shifts of the air traffic controllers to be replaced, “to avoid catastrophic consequences.”
This blocking action determined the need to temporarily reduce the demand for flights to be managed in the airspace of the approach to Barcelona, ??adapting it to the management capacity of the available controllers, with the danger that this could pose for all travelers who in At that moment they were in the air.
“This documentation made it possible to consolidate the initial classification hypothesis, appreciating the existence of criminal acts that, since the initial classification, have the character of a terrorist crime,” he adds.
The resolution insists that both the police and technical reports allow us to conclude that there was a risk to the physical integrity of people. On the one hand, for travelers and crews who were in flight, bound for Barcelona, ??due to the blockade of the control tower and the air traffic control center. “TD’s intention was to prevent the replacement of controllers, with unpredictable consciences,” he adds.
On the other hand, there was, according to the judge, a risk at the airport, both police officers and those gathered, as well as traveling passengers, users of the facility, their families and companions, in addition to its employees and staff, “as a consequence of the illicit acts of violence that took place within it”.
“This risk, the airport, also materialized as a result of the existence of multiple injuries, both among the agents and among other people who were there,” among whom there were around twenty injured agents.
The prosecutor, in his appeal for reform, also indicated that the reasoned statement had been presented when the Public Ministry had already appealed the accusation of terrorism. The instructor explains in this order that this resource has no suspensive effects.
Likewise, the magistrate rejects the prosecutor’s argument that the statement of reasons was agreed upon without foundation and without any circumstances having occurred to justify it. In this regard, García Castellón alludes to the more than one hundred pages of the statement of reasons “for the purposes that the appellant can enlighten himself on the reasons for the same, so that in no case can it be admitted, as stated in the appeal, that “It lacks foundation.”
The instructor, considering the reform appeals of the Prosecutor’s Office both against the order of November 6 and against the reasoned exposition, understands that “we must reflect on the singular fact of having to insist before the body whose mission is, on the forcefulness, “quantity and clarity of the evidence that allows the initial classification for the crime of terrorism to be sustained.”
The magistrate warns of “the seriousness of the crimes that are being seen at this moment, the clear impact that these had on the general interests, and essential economic structures of the State, the specific damages that were caused to those injured and the serious injuries suffered. for victims of crime.”
Given these circumstances, it considers that “they not only demand clarification by promoting the action of justice, but also demand, in defense of legality, that the investigation and prosecution be carried out by the judicial body that holds the objective and functional competence for it.” , which in this case would be from the Second Chamber of the Supreme Court, as indicated in the reasoned statement that is intended to be deactivated.”
In another order, the judge of the National Court rejects Marta Rovira’s appeal against the decision to send a rogatory commission to Switzerland to communicate her whereabouts.
