The alleged victims of the Catalonia operation have tried a dozen times to prosecute the case, unsuccessfully, until Madrid’s investigating court 13 admitted the complaint filed by the former Barça president Sandro Rosell against four policemen for processing. They are former commissioner José Manuel Villarejo, former inspectors Antonio Giménez Raso and Alberto Estévez, and former FBI attaché Marc L. Varri.
Until now, various judicial instances have alleged a lack of territorial jurisdiction or “connection” with the already famous preliminary proceedings 96/2017 of the central investigative court 6 of the National Court, which is investigating Villarejo’s business, to prevent the opening of a case. At least nine cases (and twenty plaintiffs) have turned to the courts or the prosecutor’s office to have their cases investigated.
In addition to Rosell, among the complainants are the former CEO of Banca Privada d’Andorra, Joan Pau Miquel; the former superior chief of the National Police in Catalonia, Narciso Ortega; the former president of the Platform for Catalan Selections, Xavier Vinyals; the Sumarroca family; Jordi Pujol Ferrusola; the detective Francisco Marco; the former mayor of Barcelona Xavier Trias; and the former Minister of Economy Jaume Giró.
Rosell presented his complaint before García Castellón, who refused to open a room. His name was in the spotlight since November 6, 2012, when Villarejo met with the president of the PP of Catalonia, Alicia Sánchez-Camacho, and they drew up a list of supporters of independence. Rosell was denounced, prosecuted and imprisoned for two years, and was acquitted.
His defense then took the case to the investigating courts of Barcelona, ??but number 7, which analyzed it, estimated that the events, if true, took place in Madrid; there the demand traveled, now admitted, with the particularity that the judge of Barcelona sent it by his side, ex officio, to the deanery of Madrid. With what perhaps it has reached another court, which must be inhibited.
Joan Pau Miquel has lived a similar journey. He sued Villarejo before the Court, but he rejected it and the case went to the division of the Court itself, which took him back to the same court, with the same decision. Miquel appealed to the Criminal Chamber, one of whose members is precisely Fernando Andreu and was also the speaker. The judge maintained a close relationship with Villarejo, as evidenced by the multiple recordings of conversations and friendly meals with the former commissioner.
The Sumarroca family, implicated in the 3% case, of irregular financing of the Democratic Convergence of Catalonia, went directly to the Supreme Court, given the status of the accused Sánchez-Camacho, who also included them in the target list. This court said that this case was being investigated in the Hearing and denied her appearance, so they went to the courts of Madrid. There it goes. In the case of Giró, he filed a complaint with the Barcelona prosecutor’s office but plans to go before an investigative court. These five cases are represented by the Molins Criminal Defense office.
Only two people who consider themselves victims of the Catalonia operation have managed, with mixed luck, to have their cases included in the Tándem macro-cause, considering that they are part of the private businesses that Villarejo did, taking advantage of the information to which he had access as a senior police command.
Piece 27 stars private detective Francisco Marco, from the Barcelona agency Método 3, who denounced that his arrest, in 2013, was illegal and orchestrated by Villarejo. In October, Judge García Castellón agreed to the dismissal after the Prosecutor’s Office requested it. Marco requested a clarification of the order that remains unanswered.
The former Latvian consul and president of the Pro Seleccions Catalanes Platform, Xavier Vinyals, seems to have more luck. He saw his first attempt to appear in Tandem rejected, but he appealed successfully. In his case, there was a private assignment to Villarejo. Vinyals’ ex-brother-in-law, with whom he had an economic dispute, hired the commissioner’s company to obtain information with which to extort him. That report prepared by Villarejo’s men would end, copied paragraph by paragraph, in an anonymous complaint that served to indict Vinyals in the Voloh case.
Jordi Pujol Ferrusola, accused in the Court after the complaint by Victoria Álvarez and Javier de la Rosa, has tried repeatedly since 2018 to appear in Tandem, without success. The prosecution argued that he has no connection to the private businesses investigated by Tándem and that “the sources with which the ex-commissioner deals tell him numerous indicatively criminal episodes, mainly related to the collection of commissions and money laundering operations.”
The Pujols have not been able to clarify the perpetrator of the robbery –twice the same night– at the house of Jordi Pujol Ferrusola’s ex-wife, nor who stole the computers, tablets and other computer effects when they traveled from Madrid to Barcelona, ??after being seized and analyzed by the National Court.
The eldest son of the family did achieve the sentence of the Superior of Madrid to the former operational deputy director of the Police Eugenio Pino -chief of Villarejo- to one year in prison for facilitating the CNI, the economic and fiscal crime unit (UDEF) and the National Court a pendrive with information obtained illegally.
Finally, the former mayor of Barcelona, ??Xavier Trias, has seen a lawsuit against Pino and the former Minister of the Interior, Jorge Fernández Díaz, and the former director of the Anti-Fraud Office of Catalonia, Daniel de Alfonso, rejected.
