Jordi Pujol is summoned to the National Court... but how many times has he appeared so far during the trial?

MadridJordi Pujol i Soley will be the main protagonist this Monday at the National Court. The former president of the Generalitat has had to travel to Madrid for a forensic doctor to examine his health and for the court in his family's trial to determine if he can testify as a defendant or be exempt from the case. However, throughout 31 sessions and 200 testimonies, references to him have been minimal, tangential, and scarce. The one who has been at the center of all interrogations has been his eldest son, Jordi Pujol Ferrusola. In relation to the former Catalan president, there have been acknowledgments, memories of passing greetings, and anecdotes, but no allusion has been made to favors or illegal commissions in exchange for public works. The judicial investigation concluded that the Pujol family took advantage of their "privileged position of influence" to "accumulate an excessive fortune" that was "directly related" to "corrupt activities." The Prosecutor's Office maintains that Jordi Pujol wove a "network of clientelism" and requests nine years in prison for the former president of the Generalitat. However, so far the prosecution has not presented evidence to prove his involvement. What have the witnesses who have spoken of him said?

At the end of January, two of the most eloquent individuals regarding his political figure testified. The first was Miguel Rodrigo Domènech, who was a collaborator of Adolfo Suárez – president of the Spanish government from 1976 to 1981 – and a lawyer for Salvador Dalí, and he praised Jordi Pujol's role: “I have esteem for his political capacity in defense of Catalonia and the Spanish state,” he acknowledged. And he celebrated that he allowed the “last center-right governments” to be negotiated with José María Aznar's PP. The following day it was the turn of Julio Bonis, the founder of Coalición Canaria, who also voiced his gratitude towards the former president of the Generalitat: “We obtained four deputies in Congress and we needed one more deputy to form a parliamentary group, and we were fortunate that Mr. Pujol gave us his support,” he summarized.

Other examples. The Mexican businessman Urbano Barquero Jiménez recounted that in 1984 he met the then president of the Generalitat – who had been in Plaça Sant Jaume for four years – due to his involvement with a political party called CDS: “I had the opportunity to greet him and after many years I met him in person”, he said. Miguel Giménez Salinas, president and administrator of Altraforma, who was on the Olympic Committee in 1992, also coincided with him: “During all the Olympic Games, perhaps it was three or four times. But simply greetings and good luck”. And Guillem Recolons, publicist and deputy general director of Altraforma from 1998 to 2003, recalled that he saw him in “two or three filmings” and that Pujol had given them “the approval for an institutional campaign”.

Five more witnesses appeared who spoke of Jordi Pujol i Soley. The first was Joan Anton Sànchez Carreté, who is the family's tax advisor: explained that he and his wife, Marta Ferrusola, had been clients of his firm since 1983 and that the children were added later. The businessman Carles Tusquets said that he knew the eldest son from the time he was a rugby player for Barça – and he was a director of the club – and that “naturally” he also knew his father. Jaume Romà, who was Minister of Territorial Policy and Public Works from 1994 to 1995, said he was a friend of the former president and his son: “I am a mountain friend because we have climbed Pica d’Estats and Aneto”.

José Luis Perelló sold Jordi Pujol Ferrusola a two-story villa in Pedralbes in 2003: “I had never seen it, but no one can overlook that his father was the president of the Generalitat,” he admitted. And Marcelino Oreja Arburúa, who was an MEP for the PP at the beginning of the century, made a plea in defense of the eldest son: “Being Jordi Pujol's son did not invalidate him as a professional. He was a gentleman whom I considered competent,” he verbalized.

Whose money is in account 63.810?

In March, the name of the former president of the Generalitat appeared linked to an account at Banca Reig, number 63,810, which Jordi Pujol Ferrusola opened in the year 2000 and which held 307 million pesetas until it was closed in 2010. The eldest son submitted a document stating that he was the account holder with "fiduciary character" and that the "real owner" of the assets was his father. The UDEF instructor highlighted that this account "did not interact" with the others that the Pujols had and "was not part of other operations," which was "compatible" with the fact that it belonged to the former Catalan president. But the family's manager, Josep Maria Pallerola, made it clear that the eldest son's maneuver was a strategy to avoid having to give half the money to his wife, Mercè Gironès, when they divorced: "He told me to tell her that he could not give it to her because it did not belong to the husband, but to the father-in-law." And so it was: "I showed him the manuscript and he left."

Grandfather Florenci's inheritance

Other moments when the name of Jordi Pujol i Soley appeared during the trial have had to do with the famous inheritance from grandfather Florenci. Álvaro Ibáñez, the UDEF investigator who was in charge of the instruction reports, admitted that the confession of the former president of the Generalitat – under suspicion for the intervention of the patriotic police in the leak of accounts in Andorra – was the "direct trigger" of the investigation, which had been "paralyzed" for two years.

Marcelino Martín Blas – who was head of Internal Affairs of the Spanish police – made a mention when he explained the document given to him by Joan Pau Miquel, former CEO of Banca Privada de Andorra: “He gave me a paper without a stamp, without a signature and without registration. It listed the names of Mr. Pujol, I don't remember if it was Mr. Pujol or his father, and a figure around a million. I tore up the paper because it was useless.” Núria Pujol Gironès, daughter of the firstborn and granddaughter of the former Catalan president, also spoke, who learned that the inheritance existed directly in the summer of 2014: “A few days before my grandfather announced it, the situation was mentioned to us very superficially”, she recalled.