Civil Guard colonel Diego Pérez de los Cobos testified today in Spain's National Audience court, continuing with the trial in which Josep Lluís Trapero, chief of the Mossos d'Esquadra police, faces a possible eleven years of imprisonment. De los Cobos already testified before the Supreme Court at the pro-independence leaders' trial and has repeated his explanations in his new testimony, broadening his explanation on president Carles Puigdemont.
One of the key moments was when he explained the police preparations prior to the October 1st referendum. De los Cobos considered that "the guidelines for action were inappropriate and the reinforcements completely ineffective". And he defined as "the most perverse element" the fact that all these guidelines were "leaked" by the organisers of the referendum.
De los Cobos ventured into a simile to make it more understandable: he compared Puigdemont to an arsonist. "Mr Puigdemont told the security coordinators that they were going to define the October 1st guidelines for police action all together, considering that Mr Puigdemont himself was the organiser. It is as if the arsonist defined how the firefighter had to put out the fire. Of course, if the firefighter has to heed the arsonist's criteria, the fire will not be extinguished but it will spread". Here is the moment: