Aid worker and pro-independence politician Víctor Terradellas dies

BarcelonaAid worker and politician Víctor Terradellas died this Sunday at the Joan XXIII Hospital in Tarragona, aged 62, after suffering a stroke on Friday at the farmhouse where he lived in Cornudella de Montsant. A staunch separatist, he was the founder and leader of the NGO IGMAN Acció Solidària and secretary of foreign relations for Convergència. In fact, he played a key role in the Process, both during the Artur Mas and Carles Puigdemont eras. Through aid work and activism, he built an extensive network of international contacts that he used to promote the recognition of Catalonia and the independence movement, which became controversial following the the so-called Russian plot. Terradellas, who was 62, leaves behind a wife, the veteran aid worker Judit Aixalà, and two children.

Through IGMAN, Tarradellas channeled much of the Catalan solidarity with the victims of the Balkan war, but as an aid worker he also worked in countries such as Kurdistan, Afghanistan, Morocco, Guatemala and Mexico, among others. He was also the founder of think-tank CATmón Foundation and magazines ONGC and Catalan International ViewIt was through cooperation that he later made the leap into politics and was one of the driving forces behind the Platform for Sovereignty, a movement within the Democratic Convergence of Catalonia that pushed the party toward independence. Very close to Jordi Pujol, he also had good relations with Oriol Pujol, Artur Mas, and Carles Puigdemont. In 2011, he was appointed Convergence's Secretary of International Relations and played a prominent role in the global impact of the Trial.

In recent years, the courts had focused on Terradellas' international activity in promoting the independence movement, and Judge Joaquín Aguirre had investigated him for his contacts with figures close to the Kremlin in the so-called Russian plot of the Trial. Terradellas didn't hesitate to talk or negotiate with anyone necessary if he believed doing so could in any way help achieve Catalan independence, and he explained that he had also made contacts with prominent figures in the United States, Israel, and several European countries, for example. The judge was also investigating him for funding the CDC and the Proceso.

Having moved away from institutional politics, in recent years he also continued to cultivate some of his international contacts and had not abandoned his pro-independence activism. Prominent politicians had come to see Terradellas at the Molí dels Aubins farmhouse in Cornudella de Montsant, where he ran a rural tourism business. He also maintained contacts with figures associated with all the pro-independence movements, although he had distanced himself from the current Junts (Junts) and Carles Puigdemont lines.