The Criminal Chamber of the Supreme Court has requested a report from the Prosecutor’s Office before deciding whether to admit the reasoned statement sent by the judge of the National Court Manuel García-Castellón so that the high court can investigate the former Catalan president for a crime of terrorism in the Democratic Tsunami case.
The magistrate demanded that the court take charge of the case once Puigdemont is currently a MEP and therefore qualified before the Supreme Court. If accepted, the Supreme Court would take up the cause that involves both the former president of the Generalitat and the general secretary of ERC and ten other people.
In the ruling, Judge Juan Ramón Berdugo is appointed rapporteur for this matter, who must propose to the Chamber whether or not its admission is appropriate.
It is the first step taken by the Supreme Court since García-Castellón sent a reasoned statement on November 21. The instructor then explained that to clarify the facts, it is necessary to carry out investigative procedures that cannot be carried out because Puigdemont and the deputy of the Parliament of Catalonia Rubén Wagensberg are absent.
The judge made this decision against the criteria of the Prosecutor’s Office, which sees no evidence against the former president or of terrorism in the entire judicial case regarding other investigated people.
On the other hand, the Supreme Court has rejected a complaint filed by an individual against Puigdemont for processing, considering that the facts contained therein do not constitute a hate crime.
The complainant maintained that the former Catalan president had encouraged, through messages broadcast and published through different social media, the commission of public altercations and acts carried out against a part of the population of Catalonia. He reported that his own family had suffered acts of humiliation, beatings and insults, and that his neighbors were called fascists.
The Chamber concludes that what was narrated by the complainant cannot be classified as constituting a hate crime, since there is no evidence to reach that conclusion, “not even for merely indicative and provisional purposes that would justify an investigation, since no a vulnerable group attacked through expressions of hate, which rather result from political pretensions of independence, which in themselves do not constitute a crime, as long as the border of violence or unilaterality is not crossed (…)”.
