Spain's National Audience Court has accused four more Catalan independence supporters of belonging to a terrorist organization in the so-called Operation Judas, centred on a high-profile case brought last year against members of a CDR (Committee for the Defence of the Republic) group. All four testified this morning by video conference from the courts in Sabadell and Mollet del Vallès, and after being charged were released.
This morning the court had summonsed six more people to appear in the context of Operation Judas, as the massive Civil Guard arrest operation last year was named. Two of the six had already been arrested and released to face charges on 23rd September, during the original operation. Four of those being investigated testified today. The other two will do so on July 6th.
More than a hundred people gathered outside the court to support the CDR independence supporters summonsed to appear.
The defendants' lawyer, Eva Pous, explained that her clients asserted their right not to testify and only answered questions from the defence related to their arguments for not being held in custody.
Said Pous: "They were no longer expecting new summonses because the arrests on September 23rd did not make any sense either, given how everything has developed. So the first surprise is that there is a case of alleged terrorism without any terrorist organization; then that they are accused of possession of explosives when according to the Civil Guard itself there were no explosives, and finally that the case is not only continuing, but moving forward with new charges, leading us to believe that the National Audience is persisting with this in order to scare the population and try to stop them from mobilizing," Pous explained after the hearing.
Participation in border blockade
Despite the apparent lack of evidence for the terrorism accusations made against the seven people held in custody in the case last year, judge Manuel García Castelló has reactivated the investigation of a group within the CDRs referred to as the Tactical Response Team (ERT) which allegedly aimed to achieve the independence of Catalonia "by any means, including violence".
According to the summons issued to one of the new defendants, to which Europa Press has had access, the judge is investigating him for his "membership of the so-called ERT, a strongly organized and clandestine group, whose members call for clearly more radical actions". The defendant is claimed to have been "aware of the events that were taking place in the 'clandestine laboratory' where various explosive compounds, mainly termite, were prepared and made".
The summons also highlights that the defendant was an "active participant in the violent events" after the Catalan pro-independence leaders were found guilty of sedition. The court document mentions this defendant's presence on "14th and 15th October at Barcelona Airport and the Spanish government headquarters in Catalonia", as well as the blockade of the French-Spanish border between 11th and 13th November last year.