He points out that a Mosso, a police officer, an urban guard and firefighters also participated in the meetings of the entity.
MADRID, 22 Oct. (EUROPA PRESS) –
The Civil Guard has placed businessmen and computer scientists in the orbit of the ‘Catalan CNI’ that met with the Defense Committees of the Republic (CDR) to support the independent republic of Catalonia, according to several reports in the summary of this investigation secret that has been carried out in the National High Court, to which Europa Press has had access.
The agents began the investigations into the so-called ‘Catalan CNI’ in December 2018, nine months before 13 members of the CDR now prosecuted were arrested. The investigation focuses on this alleged body, “related to the Catalan regional and public administration” which –“in direct collaboration” with some CDRs– had begun “planning, through the use of violence and force, to assault occupy and defend the Parliament of Catalonia over time”.
The investigators consider that said planning had as its objective – together with other “simultaneous or successive initiatives” – “subvert the constitutional order” to “achieve the independence” of Catalonia. According to an August 2019 report from the Benemérita Information Section in the Catalonia Area, the facts investigated would be included in the Penal Code in the section on “crimes of rebellion”.
Within the framework of the investigations, the Civil Guard came to document “two secret meetings” related to the ‘Catalan CNI’. One of them took place on September 18, 2018; the other, on November 16 of that same year. “A significant group of people” participated in these meetings.
The agents highlight the presence of Roger Cumeras Viladecans, “a member of the CDR dialogue commission,” who “admitted” –through a conversation intervened by the authorities– that the meeting held in November with “a group of of people who also touch on different points, one of which is the CNI, the Catalan CNI”.
The researchers recall that Cumeras had already acted as liaison at a CDR meeting with then president Quim Torra, who gave “specific instructions and guidelines to the CDR leadership”, urging them to set up a “candle” that would allow taking the effective control of the autonomous community.
In the report, sent to the Central Court of Instruction Number 6, the Benemérita indicates that “through timely discreet surveillance” of the meeting on the ‘Catalan CNI’ held on November 16 “it was possible to fully identify all those who attended” .
Among those investigated that appear in the official letter is Miguel Montero de Quadras, whom the agents place as “one of the main references and leaders of the group” and an “exceptionally qualified person in the so-called artificial intelligence.” He is an entrepreneur, executive director and administrator of Atomian Cognitive Architects SL, a company focused on the development of technologies within the computer and information sector.
The Civil Guard emphasizes that it has maintained “direct commercial relations” with the Catalan Administration. And it also underlines its “direct and decisive involvement in the creation and advice of the digital platform ‘Consell per la República Catalana’, designed and promoted by secessionist politicians in rebellion and their closest circle located in Belgium”, with which , according to the agents, “maintains direct contact”.
The investigators claim to have obtained “reliable evidence” of Montero de Quadras’ ties with “the highest sovereigntist leadership spheres.” They maintain that the businessman communicates through the Signal messaging application with “David Ollé Parellada, a computer engineer who was also investigated.”
According to the investigations, Ollé is part of the Montero de Quadras team to develop the ‘Consell per la República Catalana’ platform. The agents explain that this person under investigation was asked for his “collaboration” to send a telephone application to the then Minister of Digital Policies and Public Administration of the Generalitat, Jordi Puigneró, who was previously the head of the Cybersecurity Agency of the community Autonomous and later Vice President of the Government (2021-2022).
In another report provided by the Benemérita, the agents add that Ollé traveled to Waterloo in February 2019 to develop telephony applications “directly related” to the ‘Consell per la República’.
The Civil Guard points out that the department then led by Puigneró disseminated in July 2019 – through a Government website – an “official base document called ‘The strategy of artificial intelligence of Catalonia'”.
This document includes the “evolution” of artificial intelligence and refers to “information technology and cybersecurity” and “defense and citizen security”. The agents emphasize that such sections are “exclusive competence of State ownership, which in no case have been transferred to the autonomous communities, in this case Catalonia.”
Thus, they warn that “it could be considered that from such Catalan governmental instances it continues -in 2019- with the management of parallel structures, outside the State”.
The researchers place Montero de Quadras in a “direct personal relationship” with the then Minister Puigneró and warn of “future claims for the creation of defense systems through artificial intelligence technology”.
In line with the investigations, according to the summary to which this agency has had access, it is clear that the National Court intervened in the communications of several investigated, as well as Catalan leaders and people close to the environment of the former Catalan president Carles Puigdemont fled.
One of the first intervened conversations is the one held on October 8, 2018 between two members of the CDR under investigation –Ferrán Jolis and Xavier Buigas– where “they talk about a group, presumably clandestine, which they call ‘CNI'” that is he would have contacted them so that they would provide “the necessary logistical infrastructure” to storm and occupy the Parliament.
Subsequently, the authorized eavesdropping revealed the conversation about the ‘Catalan CNI’ that led the agents to identify those attending the meeting on November 16, 2018, in which the businessmen and computer scientists now under investigation and others such as Jordi Domingo participated. and Francesc Xavier Sole, as stated in another report by the Benemérita provided to the case in December 2019.
The agents assure that Francesc Claret, agent of the Information Service of the Mossos d’Esquadra, also attended that meeting. For the investigators, it is a “serious circumstance” for being a uniformed officer with “access to information, resources, databases and different investigative tools.”
In addition, the Civil Guard identified a local police officer (Josep Llius Bermúdez), an urban guard (Silvia Prat) and two firefighters (Daniel Queralt and Lluis Borras), as well as rural agents, longshoremen and health personnel. And he pointed to Ramir de Porrata-Doria, a businessman who was a Junts candidate for the 2017 elections to Parliament.
That and other meetings led the Civil Guard to conclude “the existence of an entity that, under the name of ‘Catalan CNI’, would plan and direct subversive and violent actions, not only through the CDR, but from the coordination of various groups and entities, with the seriousness that some of them are public officials”, which, in his opinion, would place their participants in possible crimes of rebellion or sedition.
