Spanish judge Manuel García-Castellón has found some new support in his efforts to keep the Democratic Tsunami investigation centred on an alleged crime of terrorism, in addition to the impetus provided by two popular prosecutions, conducted by far-right Vox and the victims' association Dignidad y Justícia. The latest assistance to his line of argument comes from two Spanish police officers (with ID numbers 109440 and 91464) who appeared in the case last November affirming that they were seriously injured in the protests against the 2019 Catalan leaders' trial verdicts in Barcelona. The lawyers of the two agents, José María Fuster-Fabra and Juan Ignacio Fuster-Fabra, have presented a submission arguing for the correctness of the terrorism accusations made in the National Audience court resolution of November 6th in which Carles Puigdemont, ERC general secretary Marta Rovira, ERC deputy Ruben Wagensberg, and nine other people were accused of the creation and coordination of the Democratic Tsunami platform that promoted the demonstrations against the Supreme Court verdicts.
In the submission, dated December 5th and to which ElNacional.cat had access this Monday, the lawyers of the two officers openly criticize the change of criteria made by the public prosecutor Miguel Ángel Carballo, who filed an appeal against the judge's decision because to his understanding there was no evidence of any terrorism crime, asserting that four years after the investigation began it could not be sustained that there was even any criminal group. They noted that last summer the prosecutor objected to sending the Tsunami case to the lower level Barcelona courts, as requested by the lawyer Benet Salellas, on behalf of the accused businessperson Oriol Soler, considering that it was a case under the jurisdiction of the National Audience in Madrid. "This change of criteria by the prosecutor, is at the very least a flagrant contradiction - and highly striking to this procedural representative - when there has not been a single investigative effort that could provide a reason or argument to change the prosecution thesis and that, therefore, it could be considered a change of position for judicial reasons", affirm the lawyers of the two police officers.
Appeals to be heard at National Audience
The argument presented by the two police officers will allow the prosecution's appeal, to which all the defences have joined, to now be heard in the criminal chambers of the National Audience court. This was stated by judge María Tardón, substitute for judge Manuel García-Castellón in a final resolution last week, in which she ruled out that the other judge had blocked the appeal from the prosecutors, but rather that he was waiting for the response from the officers.
In the text, the officers insist that judge García-Castellón "is not, in any case, breaking the line of inquiry, nor the account of the facts or the legal basis of all the decisions he has taken in the framework of the Democratic Tsunami proceedings". It details that the alleged terrorist offences are crimes technically defined as of a "final" nature, which require as fundamental elements to disturb the public peace and subvert the constitutional order, "facts - he maintains - that undeniably occur within the framework of the research of the Democratic Tsunami organization". In particular, the submission details Civil Guard reports, in which the creation of the protest platform is specified in October 2019, despite the fact that there is no direct evidence against those investigated for riots or actions against people.
In addition to the prosecutor, Gonzalo Boye, lawyer for Josep Lluís Alay and Carles Puigdemont, has been critical of the investigation by the judge of the National Audience, whom he has accused of wasting public funds, and has opposed the initiative of that judge for the investigation into exiled president Puigdemont to be elevated to the Supreme Court. An initiative whose result remains in the air.