Judge Joaquín Aguirre granted an interview on German public television to talk about the Russian connections of the process he himself is investigating as part of the Voloh operation. The magistrate’s unusual statements appeared the day before Congress voted on the Amnesty law. It was Monday in an evening news program after the news of the German public network. That same day, the judge issued an act that opened the door to imputing a crime of high treason to Carles Puigdemont for the contacts he had with Russian emissaries before declaring independence, a move that promises that he can take advantage of the legal pardon .
It is rare for a judge to speak publicly about an investigation while it is still open. In fact, the case is so alive that the same magistrate extended the investigation for another six months. In the interview, Aguirre denounced “the direct influence of Russia in the independence process of Catalonia”. According to his thesis, which he has already presented in some of his talks, Russia supported the independence process in Catalonia with the aim of destabilizing the group of European democracies. “Support for the independence process with the aim of Russia destabilizing, first, Spanish democracy and opening the back door to an infiltration in all the liberal democracies of Western Europe”, he assured in the interview.
Aguirre received the German public media in his office of the court of inquiry 1 of Barcelona of the City of Justice to carry out the interview, which was granted without the knowledge of the communication service of the Superior Court of Justice of Catalonia.
The communication protocol of the General Council of the Judiciary (CGPJ) does not prohibit a judge from making statements about a matter he is investigating. However, it is more of a matter of decorum, since if the judge makes public opinions or admits facts that are still being investigated, it may be exposed that the accused ask for their recusal. The protocol indicates that the actions of the judges are reserved and only the decisions taken during the procedure are made public.
His words were issued in a wider report that revolved around the strategy of disinformation promoted by Russia and that saw Catalan independence as an instrument for its destabilization campaign. In the informative piece, a MEP from the Greens, Viola von Cramon, appeared, who denounced that Putin “has been using for more than ten years in a selective and strategic way all the opportunities he has to influence, whether with Mr. Puigdemont or with Brexit; Putin knows very well how to spread disinformation and especially how it can destabilize societies; this is extremely worrying”.
Josep Lluís Alay, head of Puigdemont’s office, announced yesterday that he will take action against Judge Aguirre for the interview. Alay is one of the accused in the Voloh case, he is attributed contacts with Russia before the DUI. Yesterday he presented a letter in which he criticizes the judge for having granted an interview to talk about a case that he himself instructs. “Obviously, the granting of the interview on German television, and its content, will be the subject of a separate approach, but from now on the duty of abstention of the holder of this court is announced in the face of the unheard of fact that it turns out that a judge grants interviews and speaks, bluntly, about a case he is hearing”, points out Alay. In addition, he adds that the interlocutory order issued by the judge in which he extends the instruction is “improper, illegal and derisory” and points out that “only a prospective instruction, lacking any legal and constitutional basis, can have already passed seven years without being ‘has come to nothing reasonable, much less anything serious and not entirely fanciful’.
Puigdemont’s aides admitted that they had received two alleged Russian emissaries at the president’s official residence on October 26, 2017, in which Moscow’s envoys offered financial aid and the sending of 10,000 Russian troops, an offer which Puigdemont rejected.
There is little precedent for judges appearing publicly to discuss an open case. One of the most famous was the case of the judge of the National Court Miguel Moreiras in 1995, who was suspended after giving an interview to the journalist Isabel San Sebastián in the newspaper Abc in which he explained the reasons why he had revoked the prison in Mario Conde. The CGPJ considered that he had committed a serious offense by revealing secrets of the summary.
