The exorbitant sentences handed down by the Barcelona Audience, convicting the former Catalan interior minister Miquel Buch to four and a half years in prison and a 10-year, six month ban on holding office and the Mossos d'Esquadra officer Lluís Escolà to four years in prison and a 19-year ban from on public office for acting as a security escort for the president-in-exile Carles Puigdemont in Brussels in his free time, is a genuine legal aberration based on a narrative that is unsustainable given the facts presented at the trial. There was, obviously, no reason for the conviction, since the entire account given in the verdict is speculative or false, even if presented as proven facts.
To summarise the story, we are talking about Miquel Buch being a minister, hiring Escolà as his adviser from July 2018 to March 2020, and, for this work, the latter received 52,712 euros. Was there an adviser's position vacant which he was able to fill? Yes. Did he carry out any work during this time? He did. What he did in his free time does not form part of something that should be tried in a court of law unless he committed some crime, which he did not. There were, in addition, 14 reports produced as a result of his work in those 20 months and as much as the court doubts their authorship, there is no solid basis showing that this was invariably the case. The same goes for any opinion there might be from the court or even from the Mossos investigators about the depth of the reports. Even if this were true, since when do poor reports end in a court conviction? Let's be serious, please.
Miquel Buch has not been given justice, revenge was dealt out to him for being who he is and, above all, for the person he allegedly helped: president Carles Puigdemont. Just as the head of Puigdemont's office, Josep Lluís Alay, is also facing legal proceedings for a trip he made to New Caledonia in 2018, on the occasion of the referendum held by this territory under French sovereignty, after the holding of the Catalan independence vote of 1st October; and even for re-claiming the expenses he had from a visit to the political prisoners in Lledoners prisoners - a quantity of 11 euros. For everything that is connected to Puigdemont, Spanish justice seems to have its own, ad hoc legislation.
It is not strange, given all this context, to observe the impulsion that is found in Spain's deep state over the role of the exiled president in the investiture of the Spanish PM and the importance of the seven votes of the Together for Catalonia (Junts) deputies in the Congress of Deputies. This deep state which, in the face of any potential change, identifies very well who its enemies are and makes its most faithful servants arise from the bottom of the sea. So we see both Felipe González and José María Aznar lined up and captaining the same ship. They think the same, want the same and defend the same in the case of Catalonia. One, sometimes, although less and less these days, puts on kid gloves, while the other directly holds up the garrote as his main discourse.
On this occasion, Miquel Buch and Lluís Escolà are the two who have received unjust retaliation, adding to a long list which, if the investiture of Pedro Sánchez is successful, the passing of the amnesty law will return to square one. Òmnium has calculated that 1,432 people will benefit from an amnesty law, of the 4,400 who have suffered retaliation by the Spanish authorities, which it has also counted, and which reflects in all its cruelty the repressive action of a state which has only through this use of force found a way to tilt the battles in its favour.