Trias denounces Operation Catalunya: "They were friendly people. Fernández Díaz and I had gone to see the Pope."

MadridAfter Artur Mas, this Monday it was former Barcelona mayor Xavier Trias who appeared before the commission of inquiry into Operation Catalunya in Congress. He is another victim of the dirty war against the Process. Months before the 2015 municipal elections, The World published that Trias had moved 12.9 million euros from Switzerland to a bank in Andorra, which was proven false. "I put myself in the head of a minister who speaks to his guardian angel and says, 'We have to get rid of this guy.' But it's not necessary to do it clumsily. It's an unprecedented approach, coming from people I was friends with. It hasn't been the case with Mr. Jorge Fernández Díaz [former Minister of the Interior]," Trias emphasized.

The former mayor of Barcelona has expressed surprise and sadness at the fact that the PP government promoted the maneuvers linked to the patriotic police. "I had an exquisite relationship with Mariano Rajoy," he noted. Trias made it clear that the dirty war was waged because "the mayor of Barcelona couldn't be allowed to support Catalan independence." "They can't stand that some of us defend the freedom of Catalonia, that Catalonia is a nation," he insisted. However, he warned that these practices could extend to other groups. "I've come to the conclusion that there's a certain agreement that 'we won't do it again, we've done it with the separatists...' But make no mistake, that's not against the separatists. It's a way of acting. When it's considered normal to use abnormal tools, they're making a mistake [...]. And I don't see the Attorney General intervening in any way," he said.

Trias announced on May 5 that he would file a complaint regarding Operation Catalunya, although those close to him are cooling the idea if it does not end up coming to fruition. In 2017, the lawsuit he filed for libel and slander against the former deputy director of operations (DAO) of the Police, Eugenio Pino, who is linked to the operation, was already dismissed. patriotic policeThe judge did not find any "indications of a crime." There was also a trial against the journalists ofThe World who published that news in October 2014, but were acquitted because the judge determined that they were not responsible for an investigation conducted by the National Police that was apparently "serious and reliable."

The role of the common people

Trias doesn't trust a judicial response, nor does he trust that the person who attacked him will receive a pardon. The former ERC member admitted that he didn't lose the 2015 elections solely because of the false accusations, although he made it clear that "the Comuns have used this to their advantage. It's obvious." In this regard, he stated that it would be "nice" if former mayor Ada Colau apologized, but that hasn't happened. In fact, curiously, no representative of the Comuns appeared before the committee. "It embarrasses them," Trias said. Sources from En Comú Podem in Congress allege that their spokespersons, Aina Vidal and Gerardo Pisarello, had scheduling conflicts. In any case, ERC wanted to use the appearance to denounce how Ernest Maragall in 2019 and Trias in 2023 were deprived of the Barcelona mayoralty at different times due to a pact between the Comuns and the PSC (Spanish Socialist Workers' Party) and the complicity of Manuel Valls first and then the PP. "All of Catalonia should know that," said Republican MP Pilar Vallugera.

Oriol Junqueras' turn will be in the afternoon, starting at 3 p.m. The ERC leader, who served as Carles Puigdemont's vice president between January 2016 and October 2017, and who was convicted in the Trial, has complained in recent weeks that the justice system does not act ex officio in the face of audios released recently between the former general secretary of the People's Party (PP), María Dolores de Cospedal, and former commissioner José Manuel Villarejo regarding Operation Catalunya. Both Cospedal and the rest of the former members of the Spanish government who have appeared in Congress in recent months, including former president Mariano Rajoy, have denied the existence of Operation Catalunya and have refused to acknowledge the audio recordings that incriminated them.