For the second time the Audiencia of Barcelona has given the reason to the judge Joaquín Aguirre in his discrepancies with the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office. The magistrates have endorsed the decision of the head of the court of instruction 1 of Barcelona to send to the National Court the pro-independence strategists investigated for their alleged participation in Tsunami Democràtic.
The exconseller Vendrell boasted of the blockade of Tsunami in the AP-7: “I thought that it was impossible and we mounted it”.
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Judge Aguirre decided before the summer to send to the Audiencia Nacional the part of the macro-case Voloh referring to Tsunami Democràtic, as he had been asked by the special court judge José Manuel García Castellón, who has been secretly investigating the organization for terrorism for almost two years. In an unusual move, the prosecutor Fernando Maldonado joined the defenses of the case and asked to cancel the sending of the case to Madrid.
In a harsh statement, the prosecutor considered that Aguirre’s order lacked “the slightest factual and legal motivation” to justify sending pro-independence strategists like David Madí, Oriol Soler and Xavier Vendrell – and four other people – to the Audiencia Nacional. The prosecutor accused the judge of violating the right to effective judicial protection of those investigated and causing them “defencelessness”.
The defenses of the case allege that as the case of the National Court remains secret they do not know the motives or the facts for which they are being investigated or why Judge García Castellón asked to take over the piece on the Tsunami of the Voloh case, limited to a crime of public disorder. All of this implied a violation of rights, according to the defence lawyers.
The 21st section of the Audiencia of Barcelona denies the major and gives the reason to the judge Aguirre, scorning the thesis of the prosecutor and the defenses. There is no violation of the right to effective judicial protection, to a process with all the guarantees and to the right to a fair trial,” said the judge.The courts ruled in an order to which elDiario.es has had access.
According to the Barcelona Court, there are “sufficient indications” that Madí, Soler, Vendrell and the other four investigated, including the director of the office of Carles Puigdemont’s former president, Josep Lluís Alay, would be part of the “organizational structure” of Tsunami Democràtic “and would participate in a major way in the organized criminal activities aimed at mobilizing the pro-independence social mass”.
The Barcelona Court argues that Tsunami is being investigated for “promoting and allegedly carrying out multiple violent and coercive episodes”, as in his opinion are the roadblocks and blocking access to the airport. The “dimensions” of these actions, abound the togados, required “organization, planning, hierarchy, use of social networks and applications for devices”.
Moreover, the magistrates point out that the crime of terrorism, competence of the Audiencia Nacional, integrates both people integrated into armed gangs and those who “cooperate in them or provoke participation” in criminal acts.
In the absence of knowing the summary of the case for terrorism and rebellion of the National Court, which remains secret, in Barcelona the evidence obtained against those investigated had led to an indictment for public disorder, a crime of much less gravity. According to the Civil Guard, Vendrell was behind the protests called on the day of reflection of the general elections of November 2019, since in one of the intervened conversations he tells his interlocutor “I will already send people”. The agents also pointed out that Vendrell “not only participates in the Tsunami movement but also gives instructions on the movements to be carried out insisting that it should not be focused only in Barcelona”.
With the decision of the Barcelona Court, the Voloh case that Aguirre is investigating loses one of its legs. However, Madí, a former adviser to Artur Mas and CDC, and Vendrell, a former ERC minister, who were part of the pro-CPC Sanhedrin that devised the 1-O referendum of 2017, will continue to be investigated for influence peddling in relation to their private businesses.
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