Catalan government representative to Germany files complaint against Spanish FM over efforts to monitor Catalonia’s foreign action
Catalan online newspaper Nació Digital reports that Marie Kapretz was being followed even though she had been dismissed from her post
BarcelonaOn Wednesday Marie Kapretz, the Catalan government’s representative to Germany, lodged a complaint in a German court against Josep Borrell —Spain’s caretaker foreign minister— over Madrid’s efforts to monitor the Catalan government’s foreign action, Nació Digital reports.
The events were revealed in early July: Spain’s foreign ministry had ordered surveillance operations on no fewer than three Catalan government offices abroad (Germany, Switzerland and the UK). This came to light when a Spanish State Attorney contributed a report to an ongoing probe by Catalonia’s High Court to determine whether the Catalan government’s offices must be shut down.
In her complaint to Germany’s Federal Prosecutor Kapretz explains that she was the target of a surveillance operation by the Spanish authorities at the time when Madrid applied direct rule in Catalonia. Even though Kapretz had been dismissed under direct rule, she was monitored anyway. The complainant claims that she was followed and that Spain’s intelligence service put together a file on her which included information extracted from her e-mail messages.
On July 29 Catalonia’s High Court dismissed Borrell’s request for an injunction to shut down the three offices as a precautionary measure. The court turned the plea down as “untimely” because it was submitted at the wrong phase of the judicial enquiry.
