Three unit commanders of the Spanish National Police who directed actions against the 2017 Catalan independence referendum at a voting station in the city of Lleida, located at the Avinguda del Segre headquarters of the Department of Labour, Social Affairs and Families, have denied that their subordinates assaulted anyone. All three testified by videoconference from Ceuta to a case being heard before Investigating Court No. 4 in Lleida.
The Lleida-based legal support association Lawyers for Democracy (Advocacia per la Democràcia) considers that the police statements are "contradictory" and recalls that on referendum day, October 1st 2017, around forty people were injured at that polling centre, receiving blows to their heads and torsos, and some suffering anxiety attacks. One person received a dislocated shoulder and was taken to hospital by ambulance.
The police under investigation answered questions put by their own defence - they were represented by the State Solicitors' Office - as well as those asked by the private prosecution being undertaken by Lawyers for Democracy. However, they were unable to answer those of the public prosecution service, since no one from that public body turned up.
During their testimonies, as the Lawyers for Democracy association explained, the police commanders said they were "surprised" by the type of people - mostly older people - who flocked to the school entrance. The police said they treated these members of the public "delicately" and attempted a "mediation". They asserted that in some cases people "threw themselves on the ground" and they denied that their subordinates had used "brute force" indiscriminately and without warning against people who, as the association asserted, were "defenceless" senior citizens and "had their hands in the air" but were nevertheless knocked to the ground and dragged away.
They also denied using riot shields and armguards to strike people in the upper half of their bodies. Nor did they admit pulling women's hair, or grabbing men by the necks or by their clothes, thus tearing them. The association, on the other hand, asserts that there were "blatant contradictions" between one commander who declared from a Ceuta police station when compared to two other officers who spoke from a court in Ceuta.
Absence of the prosecutors
As well, the Lawyers for Democracy denounced the absence of the public prosecutors, which they say is in line with the actions that the public prosecution service has so far exhibited in this collective complaint made by about thirty Lleida residents who were injured at the Avinguda del Segre voting centre, "in which [all the other parties in court] have supported the police under investigation by adhering to the technical defence led by the State Solicitors, and not the complainants, the victims."
Despite this, they say, the association sees with "positive" eyes the approach to the case given by the new investigating judge - the third judge to take charge of the case - who is continuing with inquiries in order to investigate the complaints made.