The second day of testimony from former Catalan police chief Josep Lluís Trapero during his trial has been dense and technical. Very detailed on the part of the public prosecutor; very exhaustive on the part of the major. But Trapero also took the opportunity to be far more open in expressing his feelings in the days running up to the 2017 referendum than he could be at the time, when it seemed like the Catalan government had taken over the control of the force and were creating the idea that the Mossos, the Catalan police, would make the referendum possible.
Trapero today defended the force's independence and its technical decisions in the aspects that one side or the other hadn't understood. "It causes me enormous sadness the things we've heard about the Mossos, that they said we did and we didn't do," he said.
That was "the expression of a police officer who's hurt. Because I felt unfairly treated, the force and myself, and at that time my colleagues felt the same," he continued.
He has explained time and again that the Mossos applied criteria of proportionality in the actions to not cause greater damage. That there was no collusion with any members of the government. That he didn't know Carles Puigdemont before he became president. That his promotion to major had been decided on in 2016 when Jordi Jané was interior minister and that he believes the delay in it happening was precisely because not everyone in the cabinet trusted him over the independence push.