It's the case of the 4 Ps: based around the so-called patriotic police, Spanish police alleged to have committed irregularities against political opponents; focused on a pendrive, a USB drive of unknown origin presented as judicial evidence; and involving the Pujols, the family of former Catalan president Jordi Pujol, who were incriminated by the documents on the data device. Today, the son of the former president, Jordi Pujol Ferrusola, appeared as a witness in the case.
It is the first trial against alleged "patriotic police" officers, and is underway in Madrid's Provincial Audience court. The accused, former deputy operational director in the Spanish National Police, Eugenio Pino, and former chief inspector Bonifacio Díez Sevillano, are claimed to have fabricated evidence on a memory stick that was the basis of a report presented to the judge investigating the origin of the Pujol family's wealth.
Jordi Pujol Ferrusola, the son of the former president, appeared this Wednesday as a witness. He stated that the pendrive contained "intimate and personal" documents of his property, and he did not know how they came into the hands of the Spanish police. Among other things, it contained images of a tourist trip to the Himalayas and his children's homework.
Pujol denied that the police could have obtained it from the searches in 2016 ordered by judges against him and his family. Among other reasons, because there was evidence that the contents of the flash drive had been circulating among the National Police's Economic and Financial Crime Unit (UDEF) for years prior to that.
The physical pendrive device itself, he added, is not his. He also explained that there was no evidence he was the subject of any hacking.
The defendant Eugenio Pino was former deputy operational director (DAO) of the National Police between 2012 and 2016, while former chief inspector Bonifacio Díez Sevillano was his number two. The pair face charges of procedural fraud, false testimony and disclosure of secrets.
The pendrive contains 869 data files which were used to accuse the former president of Catalonia, Jordi Pujol, of tax crimes and money laundering, but National Audience court judge José de la Mata was suspicious of its origin, ruled out its use as evidence, and opened a separate case to investigate where it came from.
Spanish public prosecutors have requested that the case be dropped, arguing that the defendants have nothing to do with the pendrive. On the other hand, the two private accusations made in the case, by Jordi Pujol Ferrusola and the political party Podemos, call for prison sentences for the two former senior police officers. Pujol Ferrusola's lawyers have asked for them to be sentenced to two and a half years in prison, while the Podemos attorneys call for 10 years in prison.