The Pujol case is ready for sentencing fourteen years after the proceedings began

San Fernando de HenaresAfter six months and 38 sessions, the National Court puts an end to the Pujol case trial. It is time for the lawyers of the last seven businessmen to defend their conclusions and request their acquittal. One of those who has intervened is Carles Monguilod, lawyer for Gustavo Buesa. "During the investigation, at times I had a slight feeling that there was anA por ellos. Due to the actions of a certain police force, it seemed that the predicate offense [of money laundering] was being part of the Pujol family or being Catalan", he said. "I know that is not the case, I know that this court will not allow it and will conclude with an acquittal sentence", he concluded. He also took the opportunity to refute the slogan the prosecutor mentioned: "I have publicly confronted it. Spain has never stolen and this is an offense to Spaniards and cannot be tolerated". The Prosecutor's Office requests five years in prison for eight businessmen for the crimes of money laundering and document forgery.

Next, José María Fuster-Fabra took the floor, defending Josep Mayola, who has also railed against the genesis of the investigation. "It is a case that starts backwards. Jordi Pujol Ferrusola is placed with a kind of contaminating financial virus. The idea is that he is a financial criminal and everything related to him automatically becomes a financial criminal," he argued. "When something starts backwards, it ends badly," he added. He recalled that during an interrogation he asked if it was logical to "pay for nothing." "The silliest question in the trial," he said. But Ana Bernaola, Alejandro Guerrero's lawyer, who succeeded him, argued that it was the "most elementary question." The prosecution says the businessmen paid the eldest son in exchange for some favor, but they do not specify exactly what they got in return. And this is the crux of the matter.

The three have emphasized the fact that none of the three businessmen received public contracts from the Generalitat de Catalunya, as the Public Prosecutor's Office generically claims. "It does not meet any of the common characteristics on which the accusation pivots," said Ana Bernaola. "He is not a builder, as I have been tedious enough to say, and he is not involved in public works, I have been even more tedious," she added. And she referred to all the documentation she has provided to prove it. Likewise, Carles Monguilod lamented the "reputational damage" suffered by Gustavo Buesa: "When a person's honor is tarnished, it is like when someone opens a cushion and lets it go in the wind. You will not gather all the feathers."