The Supreme Court has accepted the thesis of the judge of the National Court Manuel García-Castellón, who considers that the facts attributable to Tsunami Democràtic after the judgment of the process could constitute a crime of terrorism. Unanimously – and against the criteria of the Prosecutor’s Office – the Criminal Chamber decided yesterday to open a criminal case to investigate for terrorism the former president of the Generalitat, Carles Puigdemont, considering that he had “absolute leadership” over the actions of the platform which encouraged the protests in Catalonia in the fall of 2019.
The High Court adopted this decision after analyzing the reasoned statement presented by the magistrate of the National Court, in which he set out the evidence he had obtained to prove the alleged participation of the former president – and the member of Parliament Catalan Ruben Wagensberg (ERC) – in the facts investigated. Since both are under investigation, the Supreme Court believes it is “necessary” and “pertinent” that they be heard in the judicial capacity as investigated “with all the rights and guarantees”. And this, due to the limited capacity, cannot be done by the National Court. The rest of the defendants in the case opened by García-Castellón will continue in this last court.
The interlocutory puts all the emphasis on Puigdemont pointing out that there is a “plurality of indications” that would demonstrate “the functional mastery of the fact, absolute leadership, intellectual authorship and assumption of the reins” on the part of the former president. According to the magistrates in the courtroom, the highest official of the Generalitat could have avoided Democratic Tsunami actions “by withdrawing his charismatic support”. However, far from that, according to the Supreme Court report, he “encouraged the continuation of the violent actions”, which were carried out “with their knowledge and consent”. And they adopt the doctrine of the men behind them. “In a criminal organization, the men behind the scenes, who order crimes with autonomous command – being able to avoid it – can, in this case, be responsible mediated perpetrators, even if the immediate executors are also punished as fully responsible perpetrators”, they leave black on white the magistrates.
Following the line of García-Castellón, the interlocutory underlines that “from the beginning” Puigdemont was informed of the constitution “of the group organized for the subversion of the constitutional order and serious destabilization of democratic institutions”. In the resolution, the High Court mentions the meetings of the dates prior to the launch of Tsunami in which the former president was present.
The court assures that it has no doubts that the facts constitute a crime of terrorism and take the opportunity to launch a warning: “The assertion that emerges in some politicians and the media that only the actions of ETA or the Jihad deserve to be treated as terrorism is incompatible with the definition of terrorism derived from the current art. 573 of the Penal Code”. The magistrates are helped by a dozen sentences of street terrorism: ETA, kale borroka…
They resort to the end of “low-intensity terrorism” to encompass a gamut of crimes allegedly committed during the October 2019 riots: unlawful detention or coercion during the airport’s entry and exit blockade del Prat – explains the interlocutory order–, massive and continuous forgeries of plane tickets to access the facilities, injuries and attacks against the authorities caused with dangerous instruments such as cobblestones or iron bars and, finally, the interlocutory continues, serious crimes of property damage continued on the streets of Barcelona.
The room presided over by judge Manuel Marchena does not end the interlocutory without leaving the absolute discrepancy with the deputy prosecutor of the Supreme Court who rejected the accusation of terrorism against Puigdemont, considering that García-Castellón was based on “mere conjectures or suspicions “. The magistrates take the gauntlet of the board of public prosecutors who did agree – by 12 votes to 3 – to investigate Tsunami as terrorism. In the courtroom, the lieutenant prosecutor made in her writing “a subjective interpretation” of the evidence, in isolation. “The probative force of circumstantial evidence comes precisely from the interrelationship and combination of the same evidence, which are presented and reinforced respectively, when they all point rationally in the same direction”: investigating for terrorism Carles Puigdemont.
The news fell like a bombshell in Congress, where, once the plenary was over, the quarrels between deputies and journalists had already turned to the processing of the amnesty law that will return to the chamber next week with quite a few doses of optimism among the parties involved in noting the progress that, far from the noise that accompanied the failed attempt in January, there are the last few days to try to crystallize it before the deadline set for 7 March.
The decision of the Supreme, however, disrupted the informal conversations in the courtyard of the Lower House at the same speed with which the socialist deputies still present began to climb the exit door to disappear from the scene.
Ferraz had given the order to keep silent and the Socialists fulfilled it to the letter, as evidenced by the fact that yesterday evening there was not a single public assessment, so the opinion of the party went have to grasp in private. And this is where the very few messages hinted at a significant discomfort with the decision and, above all, with the times with which the Supreme Court has moved.
“This is no longer a coincidence, it’s something else”, pointed out a socialist leader when leaving the Carrera de San Jerónimo. A first reaction captured by La
Who did appear publicly was Cuca Gamarra. The general secretary of the PP pointed out that the agreement of the Supreme Court to investigate Puigdemont shows that “the rule of law in our country cannot be bought by Pedro Sánchez and is much stronger than the [central] Government”.
