A response to the judicial manoeuvre aimed at dodging the amnesty law in the Volhov case. The Catalan president in exile, Carles Puigdemont, his office director, Josep Lluís Alay, and his lawyer, Gonzalo Boye, have presented a complaint to the Catalan High Court (TSJC) for abuse of judicial authority and misuse of public funds against the investigating judge in the case, Joaquín Aguirre. Among the interim measures whose adoption they demand from the TSJC is the provisional suspension of the judge from the investigation of the case, “to prevent the effects of the crime from continuing to occur” and to prevent retaliation against the plaintiffs from being carried out.
The complainants are taking this action following judge Aguirre's attempt to avoid the amnesty, by means of opening a separate section of the existing Volhov case investigation to probe a possible offence of treason by 13 people, including former presidents Puigdemont and Artur Mas. The judge announced the opening of this separate section of the case three weeks after the Barcelona Audience had ordered him to close the investigation.
Moreover, the complaint against Aguirre has been presented, moreover, the day after the Spanish TV channel Canal Red broadcast some audio recordings in which the intentionality of the judge's action was made clear, warning that the amnesty would be "the grave" of the Pedro Sánchez government, which only has "two German TV news programmes" left, an assertion to which judge Aguirre added special emphases: "Two. And that's it. Take it up the a**."
To avoid retaliation
The complaint argues that the purpose of requesting a temporary suspension of the investigating judge in the Volhov case is "to prevent the effects of [his] crime from continuing to occur, as well as to prevent retaliation against the complainants and the rest of those investigated in the different sections of this procedure”. They demand that the suspension apply to the whole case and not only for the part relating to the alleged Russian interference in Catalonia, since the judge "instrumentalizes the creation of separate sections of the case, with an illegitimate and illicit purpose, which is to make a mockery of compliance with the resolutions issued by his hierarchical superiors in the Barcelona Provincial Audience".
"For now, a case has already been decreed in which 13 people are being illegally investigated and are subject to the discretion of the complainant, without any possibility of defending themselves and with a serious likelihood of seeing their constitutional rights subject to even greater harm, through interim measures of a real and/or personal nature that could be adopted by the judge in question, if his immediate removal from the investigation of [this procedure] is not agreed”.
Witnesses
In the complaint, which is signed by Boye and fellow lawyer Isabel Elbal, it is demanded that a statement be taken from Aguirre as a person under investigation, as well as statement as witnesses from the justice ministry lawyer José María Valls Soriano, the journalists Jesús Albalat, of El Periódico, David Alandete, author of the book La Trama Rusa, and the analyst of the Barcelona Institute of International Studies, Nicolás de Pedro.
The text denounces the slowness with which Aguirre has processed appeals, and the chaos and apparent disorder of the case, as well as the fact that in his ruling of June 21st, the officers of the Spanish National Police's general information commission were designated as judicial police for the case, which means that public funds are being allocated "illicitly" to these police officers.
Abuse of authority and misuse of funds
The plaintiffs accuse Aguirre of a judicial action that is "arbitrary, extravagant, capricious and violates fundamental rights" after he opened a new separate section on June 21st in which he accuses them of treason, despite the fact that the higher Barcelona Audience court had ordered him weeks earlier to close the investigation of the case. They denounce that the judge's action "has endangered the constitutional system, the system of democratic values that should preside over his jurisdictional function, carrying out practices that would only be allowed in totalitarian states".
As for the abuse of judicial authority, they complain that the judge is devoting public funds to a clearly illegal purpose, given that, despite the fact that the Provincial Audience had ordered him to close the investigation, he continues to promote it "illegally at public expense". He underlines that Aguirre designated the police officers belonging to the General Information Office, "granting them the status of judicial police and, from this, generating a dynamic of illegal and improper public spending and, therefore, misuse of public funds".
Audios of judge released by Pablo Iglesias's TV channel
The audio recordings of judge Joaquín Aguirre which shook up the Volhov case this Monday featured strong and compromising declarations. The judge was recorded talking to others in courtrooms while referring to the alleged Russian plot in the Catalan independence process in terms that clearly show the political bias of the investigation he is conducting. The recording was published this Monday by Canal Red, the television channel run by ex-Spanish deputy PM Pablo Iglesias, and Aguirre can be heard saying that the amnesty will be "the death of Pedro Sánchez's government" and that it was because of him that in January Together for Catalonia (Junts) rejected the first draft of the amnesty intended to wipe out Catalan independence process-related cases.
The first of the recordings to be heard was recorded, according to Canal Red, two months before the June 21st, when the judge published his ruling trying to circumvent the amnesty law, by opening a separate section in the Volhov case to investigate thirteen people for treason, including presidents Carles Puigdemont and Artur Mas. In the middle of the debate on the application of the amnesty law, Aguirre notes on the recording that "it will be the grave", that the government of Pedro Sánchez has "two German TV news programmes" left. “Two. And that's it. Take it up the a**", he says, not holding anything back from his colleagues.