The judge of the Voloh operation, Joaquín Aguirre, assures in his last interlocutory that Russia offered “economic and military support” to Carles Puigdemont days before declaring unilateral independence. In a letter in which he extends the case for another six months and which was issued yesterday, days before the approval of the Amnesty law, the magistrate intends to compromise Puigdemont’s pardon and explains the behavior of the former president and his colleagues collaborators who would fit in crimes of high treason, which have been excluded from the future law. The PSOE proposal, pending last-minute amendments, leaves out not only the crimes of terrorism, but also those of treason or against the peace or independence of the State and those that harm the financial interests of the Union europe
Before declaring independence, the judge says, there were “people close” to Puigdemont who met with emissaries of the Kremlin as part of Putin’s strategy of “destabilizing democracy and the European Union” that could bring “consequences that could include the exit of Spain from the EU due to the unilateral independence of Catalonia endorsed by the Russian Government, through economic and military support”. The magistrate states that he has found “data that identifies people and would confirm the close personal relationships existing between some of those investigated with individuals of Russian, German or Italian nationality, some of them while holding diplomatic positions or relations with the Russian secret services”. Among those investigated are people from Puigdemont’s core such as Josep Lluís Alay, head of the former president’s office; Jaume Cabaní, computer scientist at Waterloo, and Víctor Terradellas, former head of CDC international relations.
What Puigdemont’s collaborators were looking for in their contacts with “the Russians, the Italians and the far-right Germans” was, according to the judge, “political and economic influence with the Government of Catalonia if it unilaterally became independent from ‘ Spain. And, in addition, he emphasizes that the environment of the former president was aware of Russia’s intentions to start “a war with the European Union, so (apparently and according to some messages found on the phone cell phone of the investigated Terradellas), the invasion of Ukraine and the consequent limitation of the supply of gas to Europe would be the first important step in the political strategy of the Russian Government and its President Putin for the destabilization of democracy and European union”. Another of the aspects highlighted by the judge and with which he intends to endanger Puigdemont’s criminal oblivion is the alleged instruction that the former president gave to Terradellas to “get the Generalitat to accept bitcoins and develop cryptocurrency legislation , and so the Russians could help”.
The investigation that triggered the Voloh operation in October 2020 and in which 21 people were arrested, was started after the police found two recorded conversations between Xavier Vendrell and David Madí with Terradellas, in which they talked about the possibility of receiving the support of 10,000 Russian soldiers when independence was declared. Before the judge, the head of CDC international relations admitted that Puigdemont met with two alleged emissaries before the DUI, but that the former president did not give them credibility. The meetings took place on October 24 and 25, 2017 at Casa dels Canonges, the official residence of the president. During the meeting, Puigdemont was “stirred” and said that the offer from the Russians seemed to him to be “a joke in bad taste”, as Terradellas explained before the judge.
The investigation into the Volhov operation arose as a result of the Estela operation of alleged corruption in the Barcelona Provincial Council, which ended in nothing. Terradellas’ audio tapes were found there and the judge decided to tap the phone of several people linked to the General Staff of the process for a year and a half with the firm opposition of the Anticorruption Prosecutor’s Office. He considered that the investigation had been carried out in a way that was “unjustified” and “without evidence”.
