A serious revelation has emerged about the new section of the Spanish judicial investigation into alleged Russian interference in Catalonia's independence process, announced by the "Volhov case" judge Joaquín Aguirre on June 21st, accusing 13 people of misuse of funds and treason, including two former Catalan presidents, Artur Mas and Carles Puigdemont. The lawyer Gonzalo Boye, also one of those investigated in this new section of the case has published a social media post on X in which he reveals that part of the judicial resolution, released last Friday, already appears in the book La trama rusa ("The Russian Plot"), written by the journalist David Alandete, which was launched this Wednesday, and takes a line against the Catalan independence movement. In the resolution, judge Aguirre maintains that when he collects the evidence he will submit a reasoned argument to the Spanish Supreme Court to investigate Puigdemont, now a Together for Catalonia (Junts) MP in the Catalan Parliament, as well as fellow MP Francesc de Dalmases (due to the fact that, as MPs, they must be investigated by the higher court).
"I am not sure what was written first, whether it was this libel or the resolution with which judge Aguirre has accused us, but the similarities are worrying. In addition, there is explicit recognition of the origin of the information reproduced in it", states the social media message posted by Boye, lawyer for both Puigdemont and his office director, Josep Lluís Alay, who is also accused in the original Volhov case - which includes the Russian plot allegations - and now in this new investigative section. Gonzalo Boye has already announced that he is preparing a complaint against the Barcelona investigative judge for abuse of authority because he maintains that he has disobeyed the order of the Barcelona Audience court to close the Volhov case on August 1st, 2023, yet now, with the same documentation as was intercepted and known four years ago, he has opened a new investigation.
No estoy seguro de qué se redactó primero, si este libelo o el auto por el cual el juez Aguirre nos ha imputado, pero las similitudes son preocupantes. Además, hay un reconocimiento explícito del origen de la información reproducida en él. pic.twitter.com/HopqHnpo3L
— Gonzalo Boye (@boye_g) June 28, 2024
The identification of Carles Porta
Specifically, in the new resolution, the Barcelona judge reproduces some SMS messages extracted from the mobile phone of another person investigated in the case, Víctor Terradellas, former director of international relations for the Catalan party CDC and president of the Catmon Foundation, in which he communicates with the then-Catalan president Carles Puigdemont, on the eve of Catalonia's unilateral declaration of independence, on October 27th, 2017, which the Catalan government itself suspended. "Carles, Miquel and I are here. 50 metres from the Palau", the judge quotes. The same sentence is reproduced in the book. The gravity of this is that this conversation was part of the judicial summary of the Volhov investigation, but that summary did not state that "Carles" is in fact Carles Porta, well-known Catalan TV journalist and "personal friend of Puigdemont", as judge Aguirre states. The book, which has supposedly been prepared and written over a period of months, also identifies the journalist Carles Porta. As well as the other person mentioned here, Miquel Casals. The judge has accused Porta of being aware that Terradellas brought two Russian citizens to have a meeting with Puigdemont at the Catalan government's Casa dels Canonges, something admitted by the Catalan presidency, in the same way as it met with other foreign representatives, and even more frequently in the year 2017. Of these conversations, judge Aguirre maintains that "Porta would have had an important role in the Russian-Catalan plot".
Collaborators, denounced by the lawyer
Of the conversations between Terradellas and others who are part of the investigation, the journalist states in the book: "We know this from their communications intercepted later by the police and submitted as evidence in the court case." In the investigation of the Volhov case, Boye has denounced several times that judge Aguirre must have been helped by a group of journalists to set in motion the investigation, which was then incorporated into the summary and provided to the judicial police involved in the case, first the Civil Guard and now the Spanish National Police's General Information Office. The defence lawyers could demand expert reports on this, in order to ascertain whether it was the Civil Guard or an unaccredited external agent who extracted the information from the mobile phone of Terradelles and other defendants. If the chain of custody is not clear and respected, all the intercepted conversations that support the accusatory narrative could be invalidated.
Amnesty demand
In the last submission he presented to the court, Gonzalo Boye - at the request of the judge - requested the application of the amnesty law to Alay and denounced that the investigating judge disseminated "the resolution of June 21st, 2024, widely to the media in advance of its notification to those affected". Last January, Boye presented a demand for the recusal of judge Aguirre, and that he be removed from the Volhov case, because he gave an interview to a German television station, in which he explained the investigation of the Russian plot part of the case. On the same day that it was broadcast, a new resolution by judge Aguirre was issued, ordering new investigations in, and also imposing confidentiality upon, the Russian plot section of the case.
Lawyer Boye has openly denounced that the judge has shared information with a group of journalists. In the case of the German television interview, the Barcelona Audience considered that it did not give information harmful to the investigation, despite observing that it was not entirely appropriate. In a second resolution, from May this year, the court ordered Aguirre to halt the Volhov case because there was no due diligence still to be carried out. The judge's response has been to open a new investigation into the alleged Russian plot.