The mayor of Roses took her seat today on the bench for the accused, facing charges arising from the 1st October 2017 independence referendum. A resident of the Costa Brava town had laid a complaint against her, for allowing council facilities to be used as polling stations and for facilitating the referendum - the controversial vote on Catalonia's independence from Spain, which the Spanish authorities had ruled was illegal. Today, during her statement to the court, Montse Mindan denied the accusations against her.
She explained that she did not provide the keys or order anyone to open premises for referendum voting. She also denied that in the early hours of that day she had gone personally to the Els Grecs school or to the town hall. For his part, the Roses resident who took her to trial, and who declared that he works as a security guard, admitted that the complaint is based on images taken from social media. Mindan faces one year of disqualification from holding public office and a fine of 3,240 euros. The defence demands her acquittal and stresses that there is "no objective evidence" to prove that she facilitated the opening of schools.
The case
Montse Mindan has become the first Catalan mayor to reach trial for the independence referendum - the first of over 700 Catalan mayors who have been under investigation since 2017. The person who brought her to trial was a local resident, who initially accused her of giving support to the referendum. The court of first instance closed the case, but the Girona High Court ordered it to be reopened.
From there, the case was reoriented. So that the argument on which the prosecution hinged was no longer that Mindan had signed the decree in support of the referendum, but that she had allegedly allowed municipal premises to be opened for the vote.
The case went to trial this Tuesday in Criminal court number 1 in Figueres. Asked by the prosecution, Mindan recalled that she had signed the decree before receiving a warning on the matter from the Constitutional Court, and that in late September 2017, she reported to the council on this as a matter of "transparency" and because, in any case, it was "a political statement."
The mayor also said that, during that month, she posted referendum posters and propaganda both on the streets of the town and on social media (especially on Facebook). But when the prosecution questioned her about the day of the referendum, her answer was clear. “I did not initiate, or motivate, or lead any action,” she stated.
No keys, no orders to the police
Montse Mindan explained that at no time did she authorize the opening of municipal premises to hold the referendum, and nor she hand over keys for third parties to do so. "There are a lot of people in Roses who have them," she said in reference to the keys.
In relation to the referendum, Mindan also explained that that day "all of Catalonia knew that the referendum was due to be held". She explained that she did not know who had opened the municipal premises for the voting, and denied - as the accusation claims - that she personally went to Els Grecs school and the City Council in the early hours to do it herself. “Yes I know the premises were opened, because during the day I went there,” she noted.
Mindan also explained that at no time did she give any orders to the local police, because in fact the body could not intervene. And finally, she admitted that she met two Catalan police officers from the Mossos d'Esquadra force in front of the town hall, who told her that they had to draw up a report because the polling station had opened.
The only evidence: Facebook
The resident who brought her to trial is a self-employed person who works as a security guard or consultant. he explained that over the course of the referendum day he went to different polling stations, saw that they were open and that the local police "did not go there all day". "The only ones there were the Mossos d'Esquadra," he explained.
The security guard initially said he had seen the mayor in the early hours of the morning at Els Grecs school and the town hall. But then he explained that he said this in reference to the images that appeared in a video, which he had watched. In fact, the resident admitted that the complaint was based on images he had extracted from social media.
During the trial, however, two witnesses also testified in reference to this video. One of them was a young man who had edited it; the other, ERC town councillor Joan Plana. The former explained that the video was made to commemorate the anniversary of the referendum and contained images recorded over different days.
In addition, both he and Plana asserted that Mindan, on the day of the referendum, did not go to the town hall in the early hours, nor that they had seen her. Finally, Plana stated that the mayor did not give him a key to open the door of the town hall; and that, in fact, the door that he is seen opening in the video is that of his office (and not that of the main hall, where the vote was held).
"Clear omission"
At the end of the trial, the prosecutor reiterated the demand to find Mindan guilty of an offence of disobedience. He argued that she should be convicted because the mayor was "fully aware" that the schools would open for the referendum and "did not take any action to prevent it." Although her attitude was not "active", it was one of "clear omission". “That is, she passively assented to the holding of the vote,” the prosecutor said.
For Mindan's defence lawyer, however, the case must end with acquittal. The mayor's lawyer, Joan Ramon Puig, maintained that it was "implausible" to try and convict the mayor based on the thesis of disobedience by omission. "The request made [by those favouring the referendum] to the mayors clearly called on them not to do anything to facilitate the referendum; therefore, [the prosecution's argument] in this case is that the omission becomes a proactive action," Puig said, recalling that, indeed, Mindan "didn't do anything" to open the schools.
The trial has been completed and is now in the hands of the judge.