The head of the investigating court 1 of Barcelona, ??Joaquín Aguirre, signed an order on April 5 in which he summons former National Police commissioner José Manuel Villarejo, former chief inspector Antonio Giménez Raso, and the detective who worked for the previous ones, Julián Peribáñez. The document, to which La Vanguardia has had access, summons the three in September after the magistrate agreed to uphold the appeal presented by detective Francisco Marco, who since 2013 has been battling in court to prove that his detention and the attempt to destruction of his detective agency, Method 3, was “illegal” and the target of Operation Catalunya.
The judge responds to the latest writing from the Barcelona Court, which in March of last year revoked the same judge’s previous decision not to investigate this alleged illegal detention, among other crimes, that the person responsible for Method 3 reported at the time.
There are several pieces that in different central courts in Madrid affect the investigation of Operation Catalunya, the maneuvers that the police leadership allegedly carried out outside the law during the Mariano Rajoy Government period against the independence movement and to cover up and hinder the corruption investigations into the Popular Party.
In recent years, several victims have seen their complaints or complaints dismissed. Sandro Rosell was the last to try, but in November of last year the 13th investigative court of Madrid archived the investigation he was directing into the Catalunya operation as a result of the complaint that the former president of Barça had filed against Villarejo and other agents of the National Police. accused of being involved in the alleged issuance and presentation of “mendacious” reports that led the National Court to send him to provisional prison.
The history of Method 3 goes back a long way. On February 18, 2013, the National Police arrested, among others, Francisco Marco and searched the headquarters of his agency in Barcelona. Marco was released hours later and the case was dismissed. Since then, the detective has filed more than a dozen complaints and complaints to demonstrate that his arrest was “illegal”, that it was carried out in the context of Operation Catalunya and that “false evidence was fabricated” and, most importantly, to access the files of the work carried out by your detectives. In June of last year, Marco’s lawyer presented a report recovering extracts from Villarejo’s agendas, among other documents, that supported his accusations.
At the time, central court 5 of the National Court in Madrid opened a separate case to investigate the illegal origin of the pen drive with information about the Pujol family after some national police officers assured that it came from Method 3. During the investigation, Marco He declared, he denied his relationship with that terminal and the data. The process ended with the sentencing of the former Deputy Director of the Police, Eugenio Pino, to one year in prison.
Marco then filed a complaint in the Barcelona courts against a couple of former employees of his agency for their possible links with Villarejo and Antonio Giménez Raso. The complaint ended up in the Aguirre court, which tried to recuse itself. He unsuccessfully sent the case to the central courts of Madrid, and tried to get his fellow investigator from 10, Miriam de Rosa, who at the time registered the headquarters of Method 3 for a matter with the Treasury, to take on the complaint. After multiple comings and goings, in November 2022 he signed his refusal to reopen proceedings. Marco did not give up and presented an appeal in which the Barcelona Court agreed with him and ordered Aguirre to re-evaluate the documentary evidence provided by the detective.
Finally, Aguirre has decided to reopen the case, summon the three indicated by Marco as those under investigation to testify, and review the documentation provided by the director of Method 3. If the case goes forward, it will be the first related to the Catalunya operation, after being archived. Rosell’s.
