MADRID, 4 Abr. (EUROPA PRESS) –
The Court of Accounts (TCu) has given a period of 10 days to the Prosecutor’s Office and Catalan Civil Society to present their conclusions on the alleged accounting responsibility of the escaped former Catalan president Carles Puigdemont and 34 other former officials of Catalonia for the alleged diversion of funds to the illegal referendum of 1-O and the foreign action of the Government.
Sources from the supervisory body have confirmed to Europa Press that the counselor of the 2nd Department of the Prosecution Section, Elena Hernáez, has issued a procedural resolution in which she notifies the deadline to the Public Ministry and the popular prosecution. As they have specified, once the response from both is received, the court will send the defense to speak out.
The counselor has adopted this decision after last January she 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 former Catalan vice president Oriol Junqueras and the rest of the defendants. of CKD.
It should be remembered that although the Court of Auditors has 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.
The Public Ministry demands 3.1 million euros jointly and severally from the 35 defendants after lowering the initial estimates of the Court of Auditors itself, which had foreseen an accounting liability of about 9.5 million euros.
Catalan Civil Society, for its part, demands 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.
Among the 35 names, in addition to Puigdemont, is 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 was added more of 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.
