The judge of the National Court Manuel García-Castellón continues to conduct proceedings in the case of Democratic Tsunami (TD). The latest has been to hand over a rogatory commission to Switzerland to locate the general secretary of ERC, Marta Rovira, investigated in the case for participating in the organization of the movement that led the riots after the judgment of the trial in October 2019, and thus be able to summon her to testify.
In an interlocutory to which La Vanguardia has had access, the instructor also requests data from a CIM Banque Privée account, so that the Swiss authorities can inform him about holders, subscribed financial products, authorized persons and connections, as well as documents of identity that by regulation have been provided to the bank account.
It also claims account movements since it was created until June 2020 and transfers received and issued, in addition to data relating to financial movements “regardless of their nature”.
The judge asks Switzerland, based on the judicial cooperation agreement that exists between the two countries, to provide him with data on recipients of checks issued and received on this account, as well as the counterparties associated with the clearing of possible checks.
García-Castellón follows the trail of the financiers of Democratic Tsunami, a movement that, according to the judge, led the riots following the sentence of October 14, 2019 and could have a terrorist nature. Yesterday, the magistrate presented a reasoned report to the Supreme Court so that they continue to investigate the case, since he believes he has enough evidence regarding the former president of the Generalitat and current MEP Carles Puigdemont, who has appeared before the High Court.
While the Supreme Criminal Court, presided over by Manuel Marchena, makes a decision, the instructor can continue to practice diligence. The Prosecutor’s Office has already appealed against the reasoned report highlighting the “contradiction” of the judge because a week earlier he had said that the case was in an initial phase and that it had not been exhausted.
According to the prosecutor Miguel Ángel Carballo, the reasoned exposition that the judge has raised to the Supreme “comes to be a kind of ex officio reform” of his previous interlocutory, “without any new proven facts and without having practiced any diligence that collects new indications of criminal responsibility with respect to those measured”. In the resolution, the magistrate explains to the Swiss authorities that the investigations carried out allow us to infer circumstantial evidence that TD was a “structured, hierarchical organization with a vocation of permanence, made up of several people with various roles that extended its scope of action in certain plots and with other people in his charge, the essential purpose of which was to subvert the constitutional order, economically and politically destabilize the State, and seriously alter public order through massive social mobilization”. According to the judge, among the purposes of the TD organization, “as demonstrated by its acts and, specifically, the action committed on October 14, 2019 at the Barcelona-el Prat airport, or on the AP- 7 that unites Spain and France, there was to seriously destabilize the fundamental economic structures of Spain”.
As for Rovira, the judge explains in the interlocutory that she is being investigated for being part of the TD organization. She is being investigated for having committed the crime of participating in the activity of a terrorist organization or group.
“Marta Rovira has been on the run from Spanish justice since March 2018, and now lives in Switzerland. With a high probability she was the user of the Threema app with the pseudonym Matagalls”, explains the resolution. Regarding the account he is asking about, García-Castellón explains to Suïssa that it appears referenced in a telephone conversation between the head of Puigdemont’s office, Josep Lluís Alay, and another person to finance Democratic Tsunami.
