Barcelona judge facing recusal over allegations of Russian interference in Catalonia

The Barcelona judge investigating Russia’s alleged interference in the process is in the target of the independence movement. The interview that Judge Joaquín Aguirre gave to German public television talking about the purpose of the case that he is investigating has given ammunition to the defenses, who have asked that he be removed from the case. The lawyer of Carles Puigdemont and one of those investigated in the Voloh case, Josep Lluís Alay – head of the former president’s office in Waterloo, where Puigdemont fled in 2017 – has requested Aguirre’s recusal for that interview and also for some opinions that he poured out during one of the interrogations.

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On Monday, coinciding with his decision to extend the investigation into the Voloh case for six more months, Aguirre made statements to the information program Tagesthemen from his office in the City of Justice. In them he explained the purpose of his investigations, although without going into specific details. “It would be about the direct influence of Russia on the independence process of Catalonia, supporting the independence process with the objective on the part of Russia to first destabilize Spanish democracy and then opening a door to Russian infiltration in all the liberal democracies of Western Europe,” he said.

Alay and Puigdemont’s lawyer, Gonzalo Boye, considers it very serious that the judge talks about “a case that he is investigating” and assures that this represents “an absolute loss of impartiality” that forces him to be removed from the case. The lawyer maintains that the interview was not the result of “an act of irresponsibility,” but rather that it was recorded before the judge issued an order that not only lengthened the investigation but also mentioned the possibility that those investigated committed a crime of treason. and against the peace of the State. This addition is very significant because it may limit the application of the amnesty law to prominent people in the process (such as Alay), since these crimes are expressly excluded from the amnesty law proposal that is being processed in Congress.

The brief adds a second reason for recusal: some opinions that the magistrate expressed during the interrogation, in May 2022, of Víctor Terradellas, another of those investigated in the Voloh case. Terradellas, former head of international affairs for the defunct Convergència, is the key character in the plot. During an investigation into the diversion of funds in the Barcelona Provincial Council, some telephone conversations that Terradellas had had (and recorded) with two leaders of the process in May 2018 came to light. There, Terradellas explained the alleged help that a Russian group, Well connected with the Kremlin, he had offered Catalonia in the fall of 2017, between the illegal 1-O referendum and the failed proclamation of independence. Russia had promised, he said, to send 10,000 soldiers to Catalonia to ensure its independence in exchange for recognition of Crimea.

These audios were the origin of the investigation into the Russian plot, which involved the taking of Terradellas’ statement as an investigator. Before the judge, Terradellas said that Puigdemont held, days before the unilateral declaration of independence, meetings with two Russian citizens who presented themselves as people “from the Kremlin’s entourage” and who offered military and economic aid to a hypothetical independent Catalonia.

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The content of that statement was revealed, but not the full video (with sound), which has now been published by the digital El Món. The judge then made a series of statements that, according to Boye’s recusal brief, are another example of a lack of impartiality, in addition to a lack of “decorum and respect for his jurisdictional function.” The document attributes to the judge some phrases against Puigdemont (“he shit in his panties”, he was “weak and cowardly” or “he left in the trunk of a car in a state of panic”) that, in reality, he does not utter. As this newspaper has confirmed, the judge only puts in his mouth expressions that Terradellas had said in their conversations.

It is true that, during the interrogation, Aguirre expressed opinions about the process, the role of the former Catalan president (“you try to whitewash the figure of Puigdemont,” he snapped at Terradellas) and about the reality of the hypothesis of Russian interference. “You needed control of the territory, that’s why the 10,000 soldiers thing is not a gratuitous statement on your part,” he tells the investigator, before adding: “Whether it was your idea, I don’t know, I’m not saying no, “That he invented it to look good.”

Boye’s brief, in any case, concludes that there is “obvious evidence” to question the judge’s impartiality. “It is impossible for him to continue wasting public resources for another minute in a delirious persecution of a markedly prospective nature and clear political orientation,” he denounces. The lawyer admits that Aguirre is “sovereign to think what he considers most appropriate,” but insists that with his actions he has demonstrated that he has a special “interest” in this procedure that even leads him to grant interviews and act in a “ rude and grotesque.”

The recusal incident, presented before the same Court of Instruction 1 of Barcelona, ​​of which Aguirre is the head, requests that a European investigation order be issued to collect the originals of the interview with the German channel that broadcast it, in addition to the place and recording date.

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2024-02-01 14:03:01
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