What would have happened if Jordi Pujol had been judged?

MadridDespite its scarce media impact in Madrid, this week has been key for the Pujol case. Fourteen years later, all the children have testified before the court presided over by Ricardo de Prada, who, after forcing the former president into an unnecessary trip to Madrid, removed him from the case due to incapacity. This fact was not front-page news in any of the main newspapers published in the Spanish capital (but it was in Catalonia) despite the time dedicated to Pujol's figure during the Procés. It is clear that a page has been turned and now the battle is for the Aldamas, Koldos, Ábalos, and Kitchen.

What would have happened, however, if against all odds the court had decided to try Jordi Pujol i Soley? Beyond the risk of annulling the proceedings for violation of the right to defense due to his physical condition and mental deterioration, the prosecution would have had problems with the interrogation, as the former president scarcely appears in the indictment. He was positioned as the head of a “clientelistic network” that shared public tender benefits. Even so, the public prosecutor only mentions Pujol i Soley 29 times in 216 pages, in most cases to recall that he was president of the Generalitat during the investigated period and no specific individual conduct is attributed to him. The contrast is immense with the eldest son, who is mentioned 290 times. Not in vain, the State Attorney's Office excluded the father from the indictment.

Furthermore, throughout the trial, all the children have stated that Jordi Pujol i Soley had no accounts in Andorra — what the prosecutor attributes to him, they say, was a ploy by the eldest son to avoid giving half the money to his ex-wife — and that he was also not present at the 1990 meeting where the children, all already of age, were informed that their grandfather had left them money in Andorra. They have also assured that Pujol's confession on July 25, 2014, about the family secret was a decision he made alone, after the publication in El Mundo of the Andorra accounts obtained by the police through Operation Catalonia. If the father acted as a lightning rod there, now the family is returning the favor, as preserving his political legacy after the restoration of his figure is a priority. The ostracism is now history.

“The grandfather did things”

The defense has found a narrative. Jordi Pujol Ferrusola explained that “the grandfather did things” to show that it was not strange that he left them money abroad: he was engaged in illegal foreign exchange trafficking during Francoism and was the first person convicted in the State for this crime. He also clarified the arguments between his grandfather and his father over the use of money that Pujol and Soley made for the cause of building Catalonia, such as creating Enciclopèdia Catalana. It was the pretext to exclude him from the inheritance and pass it directly to the grandchildren.

However, one of the weak points of the defense's narrative is the multiplication of money abroad during the years CDC governed. The eldest son's argument is that the inheritance money was invested in “financial sheets”, whose maturity made the sum grow and was distributed among the siblings. There is no traceability, however, of all these operations. He has not proven them.

His luck is that in a trial, it is the Prosecutor's Office that must prove guilt, and prosecutor Bermejo has also not provided conclusive evidence so far that it all came from illegal commissions in exchange for public works. And no businessman has confessed anything so far: there are no Aldames in this case.

This week's details