The head of the Carles Puigdemont office, Josep Lluís Alay, through his lawyer Gonzalo Boye, who he shares with the former president of the Generalitat, has asked the head of court 6 of the National Court, Manuel García-Castellón, to dismiss the case of Tsunami Democràtic for which the two, in addition to another dozen people – among them Marta Rovira – are being investigated for terrorism, considering that its instruction “expired” on July 29, 2021 and, therefore, “all subsequent investigative diligence violates the law and is null and void.”
This is how Boye expresses himself in a letter addressed to the judge who in recent days has been the target of criticism even from the Government for the investigation of this case and for the times that the magistrate has set. The lawyer also charges against the “erratic” performance at the head of a procedure “lacking” evidence and which, he says, could be classified as a “general cause against Catalan independence leaders.”
The lawyer explains that the judge agreed to extend the instruction on July 30, 2021, therefore one day after the date on which it “expired”, something that in Boye’s opinion, the magistrate could not do with a date after July 29, 2021 because the “exhaustion of the instruction period” is an “insurmountable limit.” Boye understands that the judge “has continued to unduly and illegally extend the instruction, manifestly contravening the provisions of article 324 of the Criminal Procedure Law (LECrim) and the jurisprudence of the Supreme Court”, while at the same time disgracing the magistrate for having extended up to a total of five times the instruction and seeks a sixth extension.
In addition, it specifies that until July 29, 2021 “no statement was taken from any of those investigated” and remembers that “no one can be brought to trial without having first taken a statement from them as an investigator” and concludes that everything that happened from that date “it is null and void.”
For this reason, Boye understands that the judge must decree “the nullity” of everything that has been done since that date and issue “an order to dismiss the case”, which he remembers comes from previous proceedings in 2018 that fell on the same court. At this point, the lawyer questions the distribution of the cases to the extent that “all cases related to the Catalan independence movement” fell to this “single court.”
Likewise, in the brief, the lawyer maintains that the judge’s actions are “absolutely erratic, lacking any indicative basis and that it could meet the characteristics of a general case against Catalan independence leaders, given its prospective nature.”
In line with this, Boye asks three questions: “What has been done these last 4 years? How much public money has this prospective investigation cost us taxpayers to date? What new facts have been recently discovered to generate the current procedural dynamics that we are seeing?”
Finally, the document emphasizes the coincidence of the reactivation of the Tsunami cause with the negotiating process of the Amnesty law between the PSOE and Carles Puigdemont’s party and the investiture of Pedro Sánchez, along the lines that he hinted at last week. the third vice president of Government and minister for the Ecological Transition and Demographic Challenge, Teresa Ribera.
Last Monday, the Criminal Chamber of the Supreme Court (TS) issued an order in which it transferred the Public Prosecutor’s Office to report on the jurisdiction and content of the reasoned statement sent by García-Castellón so that the High Court could investigate the case. .
Pending this ruling, until now the Prosecutor’s Office has considered that the evidence to charge the former Catalan president with terrorism is “insufficient” and that is why it appealed against García-Castellón’s order from last week in which the judge argued that, after The latest procedures carried out, the initial thesis that classified the events as a crime of terrorism has been strengthened.
