Reactions to the information published by ElNacional.cat this Monday on Operation Catalonia. The Catalan president-in-exile and MEP, Carles Puigdemont, reacted this Monday to the new information published by this newspaper, that has emerged on the illicit anti-independence movement operation, and incriminates former Spanish prime minister Mariano Rajoy. In a social media post on X, Puigdemont states that there was "a criminal plot rooted in the heart of the state intended to persecute and harm people for the mere fact of being pro-independence". The Operation Catalonia Papers investigation that ElNacional.cat has published - with articles also being translated to English - gives evidence that former Spanish PM Rajoy, as well as other members of his government, were kept informed about the the parapolice operation against the independence movement, has caused an avalanche of reactions, and Puigdemont's is forceful. "This is the rot that is covered over by the rule of law and that has allowed violations of fundamental rights. But the time has come. Beyond giving explanations, its top political leaders will have to answer for their crimes," he says. "They did it deliberately, knowing that they were committing crimes, because they thought themselves exempt from punishment."
Puigdemont asserts that, as this medium published this Monday, the involvement of Mariano Rajoy in Operation Catalonia is evident, and he labels this case as "a crime against democracy". "Operation Catalonia is not a fantasy, nor an anecdote. It is a crime against democracy committed by the government of Mariano Rajoy; it is the evidence of a criminal plot at the apex of which there were a series of "Mr Xs" whose names and surnames we will know," reads the MEP's message.
Puidgemont's party Together for Catalonia (Junts) announced this Monday, in response to this information, that it will demand the appearance of the former Spanish PM Mariano Rajoy at the commission on Operation Catalonia, to be held in the Congress of Deputies as agreed in the investiture agreements between the Socialists and the pro-independence parties. The Junts general secretary, Jordi Turull, confirmed that the party will insist on Rajoy's appearance, after the information published by ElNacional.cat, in which it is evident that the former president of the PP was no stranger to the tasks being carried out by the Operation Catalonia parapolice group. In fact, the documents and audios published, and confirmed with witnesses who were part of the operation, show that the Spanish minister of the interior at the time, Jorge Fernández Diaz, as well as the former Spanish PM himself, ordered the launch of Operation Catalonia in September 2012, just after the massive march on Catalonia's National Day, the Diada, which kick-started the independence movement.