They ask that the Prosecutor’s Office and the Ministry of the Interior intervene due to an “intolerable scandal, whether the agents are on duty or not”
MADRID, 10 May. (EUROPA PRESS) –
Several National Police unions have asked to investigate the escort offered in France to the former Catalan president and Junts candidate, Carles Puigdemont, by agents of the Mossos d’Esquadra during his campaign events in France for next Sunday’s elections. They ask that the Prosecutor’s Office and the Ministry of the Interior intervene due to an “intolerable scandal, whether the agents are on duty or not.”
The president of the Generalitat and ERC candidate for re-election, Pere Aragonès, has framed it as a personal issue that off-duty and unarmed Mossos agents protect Puigdemont, and has said that if it is after hours and they comply with the law “There should be no problem.” According to him, it will be the internal regime of the body that will have to resolve if any irregularity has occurred.
Unions of the National Police, which already warned last November of the illegality of responding to Puigdemont’s request to have an escort service outside of Spain, have shown this Friday their “surprise at the irregular use of public resources for the Puigdemont’s escort”.
They emphasize that this is whether or not the mossos deployed to France are on duty, since the former president escaped and is still wanted by the Spanish Justice, so he would have to be detained if he returned to Spain.
The SUP has demanded a thorough investigation by the Prosecutor’s Office and the Ministry of the Interior to determine the legality and circumstances of this protection. In November, this union warned of complaints for embezzlement and administrative prevarication in the case of providing escort service to a “fugitive while the amnesty law does not come into force.”
The union reacts to Aragonès’ words by warning that “any activity related to security for a police officer in the exercise of his duties is prohibited, even free of charge”, referring to article 492 of the criminal procedure law.
“The arrest warrant against the fugitive Puigdemont is fully in force, so the obligation of any police officer is to combine all efforts to bring the fugitive before a court of justice,” they add from the SUP in statements to Europa Press.
The SUP goes beyond the internal regime of the Mossos and believes that there are sufficient reasons for the Prosecutor’s Office and the Ministry of the Interior to investigate. “The fact that this protection is provided without apparent economic consideration does not prevent there from being a veiled or agreed promise of reward,” pointing to the commission of the crime of bribery, embezzlement of public funds, administrative prevarication or concealment.
JUPOL has also maintained that Puigdemont is “a person who does not meet the established requirements to have a police escort”, adding that the Mossos “do not have any authority to carry out these functions, outside of their working hours and in a district in which they do not They have no power in this regard.
CEP, another of the representative unions of the National Police, has maintained that the fact in itself that there are mossos protecting Puigdemont, “whether they are on duty or not,” represents an “intolerable scandal that cannot be perpetuated for a single minute longer.” They emphasize that this is a person wanted by the Spanish Justice and that, in the case of crossing the border, any police officer is obliged to arrest him.
“The non-immediate application of the disciplinary regime legitimizes a situation that affects the image of that Security Force and its legal obligations, among which we remember that it is the pursuit of crime at all times and places, whether or not on duty,” adds CEP.
This union has demanded that the Ministry of the Interior take measures against the Department of the Interior and that, as long as disciplinary or criminal measures are not adopted against these police officers and against the commanders, “any institutional relationship with that Administration be cut.”
In the opinion of CEP, this type of news confirms that any transfer of jurisdiction to the Mossos must be “frozen”, whom it accuses of having the “virus of the politicization of public security.” “At CEP we ask for more national police forces in Catalonia, more investment in their salaries, facilities and powers and not a single more transfer of powers,” they indicated.
