He maintains that “the impairment is real and effective” and insists that it is “proven” that the actions of the defendants caused harm
The Prosecutor’s Office of the Court of Auditors has maintained its request for 3.1 million euros jointly and severally from the escaped former Catalan president Carles Puigdemont and 34 other former officials of the Generalitat of Catalonia for their alleged accounting responsibility for the alleged diversion of funds for the illegal 1-O referendum and the Government’s foreign action, as confirmed by tax sources to Europa Press.
The prosecutor Manuel Martín-Granizo has ruled this way in a letter of conclusions, to which Europa Press has had access, after the counselor of the Second Department of the Prosecution Section, Elena Hernáez, gave him a period of 10 days to present his position.
The representative of the Public Ministry insists that “the impairment is real and effective” and “is fully individualized, with identification of each of the acts that gave rise to the damage.” Likewise, he defends that it is “proven” that “it was the acts displayed by the defendants that gave rise to the damage (…) without there being any doubt that the damages are objectively attributable to their conduct.”
Thus, the Prosecutor’s Office considers it pertinent to maintain its claim of 3.1 million euros: 883,695 euros for the referendum expenses and 2,209,503 euros for the expenses of foreign action.
The Public Prosecutor’s Office is claiming this amount jointly and severally from the 35 defendants after lowering the initial estimates of the Court of Accounts itself, which had foreseen an accounting liability of around 9.5 million euros.
In his writing, the prosecutor maintains that the activities included in the lawsuit “are not within the jurisdiction of the autonomous community” and show “a large number of irregular actions.” According to him, either because they do not have “fit within the autonomous powers of foreign action due to their direct connection with the international expansion and dissemination of the transition process and the right to self-determination”, or due to “the lack of justification of certain analyzed expenses”.
For Martín-Granizo, in the case of foreign action expenses, Puigdemont’s accounting responsibility “derives precisely from his participation and direction of all the projects, strategies and procedures necessary to develop relationships and activities in the international arena, exceeding the limits of the promotion abroad of the interests of the whole of Catalonia” that the law allows.
Regarding the expenses of 1-O, the prosecutor understands that “although Puigdemont did not intervene in the following phases of the budget processing, the alleged accounting responsibility derived from being the authority that approved all the expenses inherent to the consultation”.
In addition to Puigdemont, there are 34 other names, including that of the former Catalan president Artur Mas, who was already sentenced by the Court of Accounts itself to return to the Generalitat just over 4.9 million euros (to which were added more than one million euros in interest) for the organization of the independence referendum on November 9, 2014.
The list also includes former councilors convicted by the Supreme Court, such as Raül Romeva and Jordi Turull; escaped former councilors, such as Toni Comín and Lluís Puig; former delegates of the Generalitat abroad, such as those from the United States, France, Italy and Portugal; and delegates abroad who still remain in office, such as Marie Katinka (Germany) and Eric Hauck (Southeast European countries).
Likewise, nine people who were prosecuted by the Investigative Court Number 13 of Barcelona in the case opened for the preparations for the illegal referendum of October 1, 2017 are indicted. These include the former Secretary General of the Presidency of the Government Joaquim Nim; the former secretary of dissemination of the Presidency Antoni Molons; the former Secretary General of Labor Josep Ginesta; and the former director of Diplocat Albert Royo.
TRANSFER WILL BE GIVEN TO THE DEFENSES
According to the sources of the auditing body consulted, now that the Court of Auditors has received the response from the Public Ministry, it is waiting for the popular accusation brought by the Catalan Civil Society to be pronounced and then to transfer it to the defenses to make a statement.
It is worth remembering that the counselor requested a report from the Prosecutor’s Office after last January it refused to suspend the procedure for the processing of the proposed amnesty law that aims to forgive more than a decade of the ‘procés’, as requested by the former Catalan vice president Oriol Junqueras and the rest of the ERC defendants.
Although the Court of Auditors called on the Prosecutor’s Office and the Catalan Civil Society to issue their conclusions, both spoke out within the framework of the hearing on November 17, 2023 and presented reports even before.
Catalan Civil Society, waiting for it to present its final conclusions, is demanding 5 million euros from 11 former Government officials included on the Public Ministry’s list. The defendants have already provided bail for the trial to avoid seizures.
