The magistrate of the investigative court number 13 of Madrid has ordered the file of the complaint filed by Sandro Rosell against the former commissioner José Manuel Villarejo, two other police officers and the former FBI agent, attached to the US embassy in Spain Marc L. Varri. The dismissal of the case is provisional and Rosell’s legal representative, lawyer Pau Molins, has already announced that he will appeal the decision of Judge Hermenegildo Barrera and that he will reiterate his request that more proceedings be carried out in the case.
The former president of Barça filed his complaint in October of last year, charging those accused with the crimes of criminal organization, false accusation and complaint, and illegal detention, among others. In his opinion, the defendants mounted an operation that led to a case that kept him in preventive detention for two years, only to end up being acquitted of all charges by the Courtroom when the hearing was held. In the complaint, Rosell reasoned that his name was part of the blacklist of people supposedly involved in the Catalan independence process, drawn up by former commissioner Villarejo and since then subjected to judicial, police and media harassment.
The judge admitted the complaint to processing in October of last year, imposed the status of investigation on the four defendants and asked Rosell to ratify it last May. Later, in May of this year, he took statements from Villarejo, from police officer Alberto Estévez, a member of the UDEF and author of several reports on Rosell, and from Antonio Giménez Raso, a retired agent and partner of the former.
In his resolution last Monday dictating the file, the magistrate affirms that “the complaint provides nothing that allows any accusation to be sustained against the defendants in this case” and that “the accusation is made under the cover of a series of subjective assessments based on facts or data obtained from the media, but without delimiting any conduct with respect to the defendants here.”
Regarding Villarejo’s statement, he admits that he “maintains that it is true that Rosell was investigated for his relations with the Catalan independence movement, but he affirms at all times that his participation was null and void due to the entire economic issue that ultimately gave rise to the case [against Rosell].”
This case was the first in which a judicial instance opened the door to investigate the so-called operation Catalunya, an operation created by the Ministry of the Interior aimed at investigating and creating false evidence against those allegedly involved in the independence movement.
