The National Court summons Jordi Pujol in person to Madrid to testify as a defendant

MadridJordi Pujol i Soley will have to go "personally" to Madrid next Monday, April 27, to be examined by a forensic doctor as a prior step to testifying as an accused in the trial against his family and nine businessmen that has been underway in the National Court for five months. This is stated in a ruling, to which the Diari ARA has had access, which summons the former president of the Generalitat at 9:30 in the morning, even though "

On November 24, the day the trial began, all eyes were on Jordi Pujol i Soley. The week before, forensic doctors had concluded that he does not have the "necessary procedural capacity" to "defend himself sufficiently." That day, Pujol appeared telematically: "I am at your disposal to answer to the best of my ability, but I am not in very good shape," he stated. Previously, his personal doctor, Jaume Padrós, had warned in an interview with l'ARA that one of the characteristics of advanced cognitive disorders is "anosognosia," that is, the "inability to assess the extent of your deficits and how far your difficulties go." One of his sons, Oriol Pujol, had said that his father "wants to go to trial," but had warned that "his body cannot withstand the trip" to Madrid: "It could be quite fatal," he warned.

Finally, the court ignored the medical reports: "It has been decided that the trial will commence with his presence," announced José Ricardo de Prada, the president of the court. Of course, he added that if there were "any modification" to his health status, the court would make the appropriate decision at the time and determine "if he is in a condition" to testify. And this is what could happen next Monday. Over the course of thirty sessions, in which the former president has been mentioned sporadically, anecdotally, and without being linked to any irregular action, the trial has attempted to discern whether the fortune the Pujols had in Andorra came from grandfather Florenci or from money from illegal commissions in exchange for contracts.

When the investigation was closed, Judge José de la Mata concluded that the Pujol family took advantage of their "privileged position of ancestry" in "Catalan political, social, and economic life" to "accumulate an excessive fortune" that was "directly related" to "economic perceptions derived from corrupt activities". The Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office maintains that Jordi Pujol wove a "network of clientelism" in which he and "businessmen close" to Convergència "divided up" the "excellent profits" from public tenders that depended on Catalan administrations. However, the dozens of testimonies have corroborated during the trial that the eldest son's businesses were real and no type of favoritism on the part of the family has been proven.