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Lawyer Gonzalo Boye - leader of the defence of exiled Catalan president Carles Puigdement, and now himself also investigated by the Spanish judge in the Volhov case - made it very clear what he thought about the new move from that judge, Joaquín Aguirre, to investigate two former presidents of the Generalitat, both Puigdemont and his predecessor Artur Mas, for the crimes of misuse of funds and treason in the alleged Russian plot. Boye, in a very ironic tone, asserted that "at certain ages, psychotropic drugs can be dangerous and lead to delusions like the ones we're reading about in these 57 pages. That's where the real abuse is." In an interview with Catalan public television, Boye expressed the view that supporting a court resolution like that of judge Aguirre means "throwing in the bin the little prestige that the judiciary has left".

"Delirious situation"

Gonzalo Boye said that Aguirre is "a person who is not qualified to be a judge". Asked about the content of the judge's resolution, the lawyer assured that the judge had forgotten to "put the bibliography in for us", since, according to Boye, there are quotes from books that the judge has not read "that a friendly journalist has read". In this regard, he warned that they will present a written report denouncing the people who took part in the design of these actions. In fact, he stated in an interview with radio station RAC1 that he has "the names and surnames" of the people who directly advise judge Aguirre, and that they will be summoned to testify when the time comes. Boye emphasized that they had not received any notification about the judge's move and accused him of having the "old habit of dictatorships of notifying everything through the press". According to Puigdemont's lawyer, this resolution comes from a judge who has been "conducting a prospective investigation since 2016 which has come to nothing".

He was also highly critical of "the level of ignorance of the judge" who is now investigating him, and defined the action as a "delirious situation" which is intended to "justify something as unjustifiable as spending eight years investigating a case that leads to nothing." Boye also accused judge Aguirre of ignoring the rulings of the Provincial Audience of Barcelona and the amnesty law, in which the crime of treason is also included. The lawyer affirmed that he is not surprised by the accusation of the judge in the Volhov case since "we already had information that he would act in this way and we were ready".However, Boye assured that he will defend himself and above all defend his clients and warned that "the rule of law is at risk" more than the particular situation of Josep Lluís Alay or Carles Puigdemont or the rest of those who are part "of the shopping list of those who are being investigated." In this regard, he regretted that what these actions do "is to shatter any confidence that there may be in justice".

Coincidences

Apart from his statements to the media, Gonzalo Boye also criticized the judge's accusations through his social media by clipping excerpts from Aguirre's ruling. In one of them the judge insinuates that Pedro Sánchez became Spanish prime minister thanks to Vladimir Putin. According to Aguirre's text, the origin of the alleged Russian plot to help Catalonia become independent can be situated as having occurred on May 18th, 2018, "coincidentally the same day that the sentence in the Gürtel case was signed."

"Delirious", says Gonzalo Boye in his social media post, "so the Russian plot was by the PSOE?" He asks this question in reference to the text he then quotes from judge Aguirre's ruling, which is a paragraph headed "POINT SIX.- Introduction to the facts investigated".

The judge's text below this heading begins as follows: "If in the future some historian were interested in investigating the Russian interference in the [Catalan independence] process as an example of what, according to the press, seems to have happened in other countries in Europe, they would set the date of the real beginning of the judicial investigation of that interference at May 18th, 2018, coincidentally the same day that the sentences for the so-called GÜRTEL case were signed, which were notified a week later. That sentence led to the fall of the People's Party government presided over by Mariano Rajoy and gave way to a coalition led by the PSOE together with other political parties with markedly pro-independence tendencies. This historical coincidence would mark the development of the judicial investigation of the Russian interference as will be seen later."

That is, Aguirre's judicial resolution speculates about the possible coincidence of political events, specifically, the 2018 PP corruption case sentence which prompted the party's fall from Spanish government, which occurred on the same day as the "real beginning" of his investigation into the allegations of Russian interference in Catalonia. The completeness of the judge's narrative on this auspicious choice of date could only have been topped off with the observation that May 18th, 2018, was also the exact day on which, 150 years earlier, the last czar of Russia, Nicolas II, was born.