Jordi Pujol is summoned to the National Court... but how many times has he appeared so far during the trial?
There have been very few mentions of the former president: they have been anecdotal and unrelated to any crime
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 hearing his family to rule whether he can testify as a defendant or be acquitted of the case. However, over 31 sessions and 200 witnesses, references to him have been minimal, tangential, and sparse. His eldest son, Jordi Pujol Ferrusola, has been at the center of all interrogations. In relation to the former Catalan president, there have been expressions of gratitude, memories of passing greetings, and anecdotes, but no mention has been made of preferential treatment 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 immoderate 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, to date, 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 witnesses testified about his political figure. 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 a high regard 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 next day it was the turn of Julio Bonis, the founder of Coalición Canaria, who also expressed his gratitude to 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 supported us,” he summarized.
Other examples. Mexican businessman Urbano Barquero Jiménez stated that in 1984 he met the then president of the Generalitat – who had been in Plaça Sant Jaume for four years – due to his affiliation 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 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 on “two or three film shoots” and that Pujol had given them “approval for an institutional campaign”.
There have been five more witnesses who have spoken about Jordi Pujol i Soley. The first was Joan Anton Sànchez Carreté, who is the family's tax advisor: he explained that he and his wife, Marta Ferrusola, had been clients of his firm since 1983 and that the children later joined. Businessman Carles Tusquets said he knew the eldest son from that time, who was a rugby player for Barça – and he was a director of the club – and that "of course" 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 friend of the mountains 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 him, but it is obvious to everyone 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 stated.
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 2000 and which held 307 million pesetas until it was closed in 2010. The eldest son handed over a document stating that he was the account holder with “a fiduciary character” and that the “real owner” of the assets was his father. The UDEF investigator highlighted that this account “did not interact” with the others held by the Pujols and “was not part of other operations”, which was ‘compatible’ with it belonging to the former Catalan president. However, the family manager, Josep Maria Pallerola, made it clear that the eldest son's maneuver was an strategy to avoid having to give half of 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 her husband, but to her father-in-law”. And so it was: “I showed him the manuscript and he left”.
Grandfather Florenci's legacy
Other times when the name of Jordi Pujol i Soley appeared during the trial have been related to the famous legacy of 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” for the investigation, which had been “paralyzed” for two years.
Marcelino Martín Blas – who was head of Internal Affairs of the Spanish police – mentioned it when he explained the paper given to him by Joan Pau Miquel, former CEO of Banca Privada d’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 one million. I tore up the paper because it was useless.” Núria Pujol Gironès, daughter of the eldest son and granddaughter of the former Catalan president, also spoke about it, who learned that the legacy existed directly in the summer of 2014: “A few days before my grandfather announced it, the situation was very briefly mentioned to us,” she recalled.
