Magistrate Pablo Llarena sent the Barcelona court the reports prepared by the Interior and the Mossos d’Esquadra on the escape of Carles Puigdemont from the Catalan capital last August. The magistrate understands that a crime of “omission of the duty to prosecute crimes” and another of concealment by an agent could have been committed. In his judgment, the trial instructor assures that the reports he studied “do not reflect obstacles to the police device” for having arrested the leader of the Junts “while he was heading towards the place where he joined that agglomeration of people who were waiting for him.” Nor was it impossible, he adds, to “monitor and reach”.
Carles Puigdemont went to the outskirts of the Parliament of Catalonia last August, the day that the socialist Salvador Illa was sworn in as the new president. He appeared for several minutes on a stage located a few meters from the room, then disappeared after joining the hundreds of people cheering him around the room. The Mossos d’Esquadra, in charge of the operation that day, did not stop him at that moment and Puigdemont ended up leaving the country after the failure of the operation traditionally called “Cage”.
Judge Pablo Llarena, who has been calling for years for the arrest and prosecution of the former president for his involvement in the main cause of the trial, reacted shortly after. A few hours after the failure of his arrest attempt, the Supreme Court judge asked for explanations from both the Ministry of the Interior and the Catalan regional police. In their report, the Mossos acknowledged “errors” in the system. The Interior, for its part, attributed all the responsibility to the Mossos, explaining that they had “rejected” operational support.
The magistrate now explains that the possibility that active agents helped Puigdemont to escape should not be ruled out, and he asks the Barcelona courts to open a procedure for the crime of receiving stolen goods and another for failure to prosecute the crimes, attributed to law enforcement officers. Currently, three officers of the Catalan regional police have been suspended after being arrested and accused of helping Puigdemont to escape.
The magistrate, in a judgment known this Thursday, also explains that after reviewing the reports, he finds no reason why Puigdemont would not have been arrested before his disappearance or even during his subsequent persecutions. “The reports do not reflect impediments,” explains the judge.
