The Mossos d’Esquadra commissioner, Eduard Sallent, will provisionally assume command of the Catalan police until Christmas, sources familiar with the maneuver have confirmed to La Vanguardia. Sallent will pilot the headquarters in the coming days until the four commissioners and the two commissioners elected last week by the Minister of the Interior, Joan Ignasi Elena, collect their stripes, against the criteria of the still boss, Commissioner Josep Maria Estela, who drew up another list in which half of those finally chosen differed.
The list of the six new commissioners has been the last chapter of a long, complex and abrupt crisis between Estela and the minister’s team, with Elena at the head. Until Friday practically at noon, the head of the Mossos tried to agree on a list with three mayors (Rosa Bosch, Montse Estruch and Silvia Catà) and three mayors (Carles Hernández, Ramón Chacón and Antoni Sánchez). The six names were part of a final list of ten mayors who gathered, according to the court, the best qualifications and resumes of the 29 men and the five women who presented themselves.
The meeting was much more than tense, they coincide in ensuring the environment of both protagonists. It was no longer just the list of commissioners that Estela was clear from, practically from the first moment, that the names that she defended would not come out.
During these months, Estela has seen how, despite being in charge of the police, she has not been able to appoint her team of commissioners to the headquarters, nor, for example, direct the communication policy of the Mossos. Before the summer he asked to replace Sallent and the response from the Interior was publicized and forceful: “Sallent is untouchable.” But there have been more situations that have caused tension. For example, the inability of the head of the body to expedite the incorporation of thirteen new police officers to the central anti-corruption unit, requested in February and who, nine months later, still have not arrived due to “administrative bureaucratic” issues, according to department sources who deny any intention. in the delay
Estela left the meeting in which the new heads of the body were decided, aware that her time at the head of the Catalan police had ended. And with another feeling that in recent weeks she has shared with the commissioner Miquel Esquius. If on his day, Minister Miquel Busch used Esquius while Sallent reached the rank of commissioner to place him at the head of the police; On this occasion Elena would have used him with two objectives: the first to erase Major Josep Lluís Trapero from the map and anyone who had had a relationship of trust with him. And the other, waiting for the appointment of the new commissioners to place one of them, probably Bosch, at the head of the police, with Sallent, as now, and the current director Pere Ferrer as number two.
In Elena’s apartment the situation is analyzed differently. They trust and are convinced that Estela will present her resignation on Monday and that she will join the head of the Ponent region, thus closing a new crisis for which they hold the commissioner solely responsible. “She has not been able to work with the best and that she promised to do it and she has not opted for feminization either; because contrary to what some say, Estela defended the promotion of only two women and four men”, they assure from the Department of the Interior.
They attribute to the police officer a “constant absence” in the day to day of the organization. “He has not been in the Cecor, he has not been in important acts of the police school. He has not been able to lead the Mossos because surely the position has come in handy”. A harsh vision of the Interior not shared by some of the commissioners and mayors at the head of general police stations who have worked under Estela.
The chief commissioner has two options. La Vanguardia already reported in September that he had lost his pulse against Sallent and that he was on the ropes. It remains for him to present his resignation and accept the proposal to return to the Ponent Police Department, where he was already a second. Or inform Minister Elena on Monday that she is still in office due to responsibility and that they dismiss her if they consider it so.
