Gonzalo Boye, lawyer of former president Carles Puigdemont and his advisor Josep Lluís Alay, has asked the National Court to suspend the statements of those investigated for terrorism in the Democratic Tsunami case, scheduled for next Wednesday.
As reported by legal sources, the lawyer has alleged that he has a pending trial that prevents him from attending the statements, which the judge of the National Court Manuel García Castellón scheduled for next May 22, by videoconference from Barcelona, despite the fact that several of those investigated are outside Spain.
In particular, the judge called ERC general secretary Marta Rovira, Josep Lluís Alay, former ERC councilor Xavier Vendrell, republican activist Marta Molina, businessman Oriol Soler, Òmnium Cultural leader Oleguer Serra to testify as investigated , the journalist Jesús Rodríguez and the computer scientist Jaume Cabaní.
García Castellón offers all of them the possibility of testifying by videoconference from Barcelona, which seems unlikely in the case of those investigated who have established their residence outside of Spain, such as Rovira, Serra or Rodríguez, who now live in Switzerland, as well as like Cabaní, whose whereabouts are unknown.
As for Nicola Flavio, an Italian banker investigated for his alleged relationship with the financing of Tsunami, the magistrate has asked Italy to locate him to take his statement by videoconference.
On the other hand, yesterday, two police officers injured in the riots in the Plaza de Urquinaona in Barcelona on October 18, 2019 in protest of the sentencing of the process, declared before the judge that that day they feared for their lives and came to think that the Protesters “were looking for a dead person” among the agents.
The two, who agreed to highlight the perfect organization of the protesters to cause harm and the “extreme violence” they experienced, appeared as witnesses in this case in which they are appearing as a private prosecution.
The two have already demanded that the Ministry of the Interior be recognized and compensated as victims of terrorism for the physical damage and consequences suffered in these incidents, after which they had to go into early retirement due to permanent disability.
One of the agents who testified before García Castellón received a blow to the head for which he had to be admitted to the ICU, while the other suffered a “serious open fracture” in the radius of his right arm while he was part of the operation that at that time it contained the protesters.
The latter is Ángel, who, after appearing before the judge, spoke to the media at the exit of the National Court. “I did feel at some point in danger for my life. In fact, my physical integrity was seriously damaged and I have psychological consequences,” said this anti-riot agent from the National Police when asked by journalists.