The defence team of Carles Puigdemont has lodged a protest with regard to comments made, and the tone used, by Spanish judge Joaquín Aguirre when questioning a suspect, Víctor Terradellas, about the exiled Catalan president in a hearing on May 11th. El Nacional has had access to the video of the interrogation, part of the so-called Volhov case, investigating supposed financial irregularities by Catalan pro-independence politicians, in which the judge makes a long reflection on the expression "he shat his panties". It was a phrase that Terradellas had apparently used to describe Puigdemont's reaction to the proposal made by two alleged Russian government envoys in 2017 to send 10,000 soldiers to Catalonia and provide funding to the republic once it had been proclaimed, and the judge carried out a curious line of questioning on the matter.
During the interrogation, shown in the video below, the judge reproaches Terradellas that he is trying to "whitewash" the figure of Puigdemont, by saying that the Catalan president did not agree at all with the proposals made by the Russians. Judge Aguirre then goes on: "But one thing is this and another shitting his panties", especially when referring to a man - the point being that the Catalan expression cagar-se a les calces refers to "shitting one's panties", specifically mentioning the word for women's underwear, calces. "Yes, yes, laugh because it's funny", says the judge to the defendant. "I know, in Catalan, I won't tell you who, but well, someone close to me tells me: the thing is that the expression in Catalan cagar-se a les calces referring to a man is like especially humiliating, because men don't wear panties, they wear shorts. So when he says he shit his panties, it means that he is a person who is weak, cowardly...”, adds the judge, making his own particular interpretation of the expression.
Is he overcome by panic?
The judge then continues: “Did he panic? That is to say, more or less, if you want to say it more politely, translate this expression, instead of shitting in your panties, you are overcome by panic, and when you panic you shit yourself, right? Well, there you are then, eh?" "And because he was overcome by panic in doing the Unilateral Declaration of Independence (UDI), which he suspended, and people didn't know what he did, and he left in the boot of the car," the judge continued, before the person giving evidence.
At this point, Terradellas denied that this was the case, given that the suspension of the UDI was earlier and the judge was speculating about Puigdemont's departure to Belgium, weeks later. "Okay. In the end, the gentleman left in the boot of the car because I guess he was still in a state of panic and once in Brussels he felt safer and continued with bitcoins", the judge went on.
The Puigdemont defence team, led by lawyer Gonzalo Boye, on learning the tone of the interrogation through the media submitted a letter to the court demanding that proper decorum be maintained in the relationship between institutions and that the insulting and derogatory comments made with respect to Puigdemont must end. As well, given the repeated questions about the Catalan president and the financing of his offices in Waterloo that were also part of the interrogation, the lawyer asks to know if Aguirre is investigating the president with a view that he will appear before the court as well as inquiring that, if this is the case, what offence is being investigated.