The last chance to investigate Operation Catalonia?
In the interview published this Sunday by ARA, former president of the Generalitat (Catalan government) Artur Mas explains that he has already filed a complaint regarding the Catalunya operation, which he announced on Monday before the Congress of Deputies' commission of inquiry. The complaint has two legs. The first concerns the publication of fake news through the so-called "patriotic police," a maneuver orchestrated by former commissioner José Manuel Villarejo on behalf of the PP leadership, as evidenced by audio recordings provided by the former police officer himself. The second refers to the Pegasus spying of which Mas was a victim between 2015 and 2020, according to the specialized Canadian laboratory.
It seems incredible that with the amount of evidence that has been accumulating so far, including very explicit recordings where the voices of, among others, Jorge Fernández Díaz and María Dolores de Cospedal can be heard, none of the complaints that have been filed so far to investigate Operation Catalunya (bate. The most painful case is perhaps that of Sandro Rosell and Joan Besolí, who spent two years in preventive detention before being acquitted. Rosell, as president of Barça, was one of the names that appeared on the lists of people who had to be punished for supporting the Proceso or for the simple fact of being someone important in Catalonia.
Mas's complaint, therefore, perhaps represents the last opportunity to start a real investigation into this case. There is one factor that will make it difficult for it not to be admitted to the entry process, and that is that it includes espionage with Pegasus, which is a case that is being Investigating in other courts, for example in the case of another former president of the Generalitat, Pere Aragonès. We will therefore need to pay close attention to the path this lawsuit takes and, in particular, to the attitude of the Prosecutor's Office, which has been very lukewarm on this case so far.
It should also be noted that the situation has changed over the last year or so. The PSOE, and especially its leader, Pedro Sánchez, has also become a victim of cases of lawfareJudge Juan Carlos Peinado's investigation into the case involving Sánchez's wife, Begoña Gómez, has further convinced the PSOE that what the pro-independence parties and Podemos were alleging in their case was true. And the Supreme Court's battle against the Attorney General in the case involving the partner of Madrid's president, Isabel Díaz Ayuso, has further strengthened the Socialists' belief in this. Therefore, a more forceful stance from the Prosecutor's Office is now expected to get to the bottom of this democratic scandal.
And what needs to be clarified? Well, not only who the agents were who carried out the disinformation and espionage operations, but who ordered them and with what money they were financed. The lack of memory of all the PP leaders who have served on the commission is very eloquent, an insult to the intelligence of the citizens. If the pro-independence leaders were imprisoned for allegedly breaking the law, the law may now apply equally to everyone.
