Firm judgment from the Girona court in the most serious case of police corruption linked to drug trafficking tried so far in Catalonia. The magistrates handed down sentences of 10 years and nine months, nine 10 years and one month and nine years and nine months against a corporal and two agents of the Mossos d’Esquadra de Santa Coloma de Farners (Girona) for trafficking in marijuana and marijuana previously seized. that it was kept at the local police station.
“They did not request the destruction of the buds and kept them to use them in illicit trafficking,” states the judgment of the Girona court, to which elDiario.es had access. Despite the conviction, the resolution criticizes the investigation of the case for not having properly preserved the buds which triggered the affair in the summer of 2020. This “incomprehensible oversight”, underlines the sentence, “does not invalidate” the conclusion that the agents They traffic marijuana, obtained thanks to the numerous intercepted telephone conversations between the convicts.
The sentence punishes the corporal with 4 years and 3 months for an offense against public health aggravated by his function, 2 years and 6 months for theft, 6 months for belonging to a criminal group and 3 years and 6 months for falsification of official document. In addition, he fined him 14,245 euros and banned him from working as a police officer for either the Mossos d’Esquadra or any other police force for the duration of his sentence.
Agent OH is sentenced to 4 years in prison for an offense against public health, 3 and a half months for belonging to a criminal group, 2 and a half years for theft and 3 years for falsification of an official document committed by a public agent. , as well as the same SM fine and is also disqualified as a police officer.
The third agent, JFP, was sentenced to 4 years and 3 months in prison and a fine of 17,582 euros for an offense against public health, 3 months for belonging to a criminal group, 2 years for theft and 3 years and 7 months for discovery and disclosure of secrets committed by a public official. Likewise, it is prohibited to work in the police field during this entire period.
As for the marriage formed by a local trafficker and his partner, both accused of being part of the network, the first was sentenced to 2 years and 3 months in prison for crimes against public health and membership in a criminal group, and she was acquitted of all charges.
The officers pleaded not guilty during the trial to charges supported by images and audio recordings captured in the unmarked vehicle they were using and by police station cameras, which recorded one of them with bags of drugs.
The evidence against the officers is overwhelming. Among the conversations recorded by the Internal Affairs Unit and which contributed to the house’s summary, those in which the trafficker even asks one of the convicted agents for a scale stand out.
Regarding the images, the corporal was recorded removing five bags of marijuana from the container where the seized person was placed and into which they had just introduced the drug that had just been seized.
Subsequently, the Directorate of Internal Affairs followed him and saw that he was taking them to the home of one of the agents, although the corporal denied this during the trial and the police assured that he had at home for his own consumption in order to relieve severe back pain.
The judgment rejects the defense’s request to cancel the wiretapping and searches for taking the statement of the informant in the case as a witness, on the understanding that this should have been done as an investigator for having admitted that he was dealing drugs.
The argument in favor of the judgment is that this individual had “a dual quality, of witness and accused” and an irregularity is recognized for not having been informed of the second, but without leading to the annulment requested by the lawyers of the accused.
Investigators who testified at the trial recounted the usual operation after a marijuana seizure, consisting of bagging it for destruction, a practice broken by this organization, which stole some of it to sell on the illicit market with the help of the convicted small-time local trafficker.
