The much-anticipated appearance of Daniel Baena, Civil Guard lieutenant colonel and plenipotentiary head of the police investigation into the Catalan independence process for the Supreme Court, has left more doubts than certainties. Above all, the most important question that remains up in the air is whether we were watching the person behind the Twitter account Tácito which poured harsh attacks on the independence movement. Something he denied with the same apparent assurance he had some time ago when a journalist recorded him saying precisely the opposite. It's not a minor issue and could end up being central, since the police investigation would be partially biased and contaminated with him as investigator. And it would bring up, if he had given false witness and it could be demonstrated, a not-at-all minor question: is such a person to be trusted?
Judge Marchena has so far protected the witness in two key matters: the first, rejecting the defences' request for Twitter to confirm whether lieutenant colonel Baena really is Tácito. The second, to not accept the testimony of the journalist who had recorded Baena's statement that he was. They don't seem to be two minor matters, especially if they would end up helping to clarify the truth, but judge Marchena hasn't left the slightest crack open to pursue them. Two negative responses which leave the question at an apparent impasse. And that despite a new clue having appeared in recent hours which would show that Tácito and Baena are the same person. On Tácito's Twitter account their appeared an image of a rattlesnake and that same image was also used on Baena's personal Facebook account. The Civil Guard officer didn't know how to respond to that, attributing it to a coincidence.
Given the severity of the sentences they're asking for for the defendants (in some cases more than 25 years), everything possible should be done to eliminate any shadow of a doubt. It would all have a positive effect for the impartiality that's been called for since the start of the trial. One of the accused, Jordi Sànchez, the former president of the ANC who public prosecutors accuse of rebellion and ask be imprisoned for 17 years, said as soon as Baena's testimony was over that the trial was a farce and that it was clearer than ever to him that their imprisonment was unjust. Various defence lawyers expressed the same degree of bewilderment over Baena's statements and commented that it was clearer than ever in yesterday's session that it's a general lawsuit against the independence movement.
From its first day, the trial has been piling up dark areas which can't be touched, like viewing evidence which would counter testimony full of untruths, different criteria when it comes to warning witnesses they're under oath, and areas where they're more or less indulgent when it comes to avoiding compromising answers with evasive ones. None of this, however, was of the scale seen this Tuesday in the Supreme Court. This is a chapter which shouldn't be left unresolved.