The investigating judge 1 of Barcelona, ??Joaquín Aguirre, has a case open against seven Mossos d’Esquadra agents accused of having illegally detained a man whom they had insulted and harassed for his homosexuality. The magistrate attributes to them an alleged crime of illegal detention, degrading treatment and the crime of injuries based on a report prepared by the Internal Affairs Division.
The events date back to November 8, 2021, as reported by El Periódico and judicial sources have confirmed to La Vanguardia. Three Catalan police patrols went to a bar in Eixample alerted by the owner. A customer, who was very upset, had broken the finger of a friend of his hand. Apparently, the woman declined to report him because he was her friend and the agents left. However, a few minutes later, the owner of the bar turned to the police again after the same individual had caused a burn on a customer’s face. The owner called the Mossos and informed them that together with several consumers of the bar they had subdued the aggressor.
When the officers showed up at the bar, they proceeded to arrest the man. They put him in the police vehicle and allegedly beat him shouting “faggot,” causing him to vomit inside the car, according to the victim himself. Even though he had been arrested and handcuffed, one of the officers opened the car door and released him. He “left him on the ground and then hit him in the calf area with a blunt object,” according to the victim’s story. After wandering around the street for a while, according to the victim’s statement, the same patrol intercepted him again and put him inside the vehicle where he was allegedly attacked again.
The investigation of the case has taken so long because the affected person did not ratify the complaint, and the judge warned him that if he did not do so he would file it. The man alleged that he was outside Spain despite the fact that at this time he has been detained twice by the police for attacking his grandmother. The case began after a trainee agent who was on board the vehicle in which the attack supposedly occurred brought the facts to the attention of the Internal Affairs Division of the Mossos.
The complaint was filed in July 2022, almost nine months after the events. The DAI proceeded to arrest the seven agents, including a corporal. The judge decreed provisional detention with bail of 6,000 euros for the two agents who accompanied the victim in the vehicle. The Requena law firm