Heavy criticism of the Spanish state and its powers, especially the judiciary, has been levelled in one of the most veteran of Portugal's dailies, Diário de Notícias de Madeira. An op-ed in the newspaper, signed by columnist Tiago Douwens Prats, reviews the Spanish judicial persecution of Josep Lluís Alay, head of staff for Catalan president Carles Puigdemont, and goes through all the inconsistencies in the accusations he is facing, focusing especially on the French case of New Caledonia, with the article also giving a message to the government of Emmanuel Macron: "Alay is accused of having travelled to New Caledonia invited by pro-independence activists as an international observer at one of the referendums held and is accused of charging the cost of the plane ticket to the public purse." The paper comments: "In fact, his participation gave credence to the referendum organized by the French authorities, they should consider Mr Alay as a guest. It is an honour for France."
"Investigate the PP and the Spanish royal house"
Douwens criticises the persecution of Alay for this matter as well as for the famous eleven euros he was accused of charging to the public treasury for a toll he paid on the way to visiting the pro-independence Catalan political prisoners: "For these two trips, the Spanish prosecutor demands three years in prison and a seventeen year ban on public office holding for Alay!" And he wonders how these items can be blamed on him when it was the Spanish minister Cristóbal Montoro himself in the then-PP government who admitted in court that there was no misuse of public funds attributable to president Puigdemont or his administration. The analyst calls it "ironic" that Catalan leaders are being prosecuted for misuse of funds "in a country where it is public knowledge that the king and the royal family have appropriated public funds and demanded bribes in exchange for millionaire contracts." All in all, the conclusion he draws is very severe: "If corruption is really a problem in the eyes of this country's justice system, they should start with the Popular Party and the royal family. The reality is that the Spanish judicial system has abandoned impartiality and put itself at the service of the country's unity, which is threatened by Catalan independence ".
"Fraudulent use of the judicial system"
As well, the Portuguese newspaper considers that there is evidence of "the current Catalan persecution" which is "recurrent as in the case of Alay for totally absurd accusations." And it laughs at the famous Operation Volhov, recalling that "the Spanish police allegedly discovered an invasion plan involving 10,000 Russian soldiers, which, with the support of the Kremlin were to achieve the independence of Catalonia, but based on evidence that was actually a translation of a Russian spy novel on which Alay worked as a translator." And it also remembers another case detached from this operation and that has gone more unnoticed: the arrest that Alay suffered in Germany, "at the request of Spain", while accompanying Puigdemont on a return trip from Finland. The columnist concludes that all this is part of the Spanish strategy "to use the judicial system fraudulently with the aim of destroying a legitimate goal such as the independence of Catalonia through a democratic referendum."