What would have happened if Jordi Pujol had been judged?

MadridDespite the scarce media coverage 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, excluded 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 (though 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 due to a violation of the right to defense because of his physical condition and mental deterioration, the prosecution would have had problems during the interrogation, as the former president scarcely appears in the indictment. He was positioned as the head of a "clientelist network" that shared benefits from public tenders. Even so, the public ministry 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 his eldest son, who is cited 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 account 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 not present at the 1990 meeting where the children, all of them adults, 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 there the father acted as a lightning rod, now the family returns the favor: they have made preserving his political legacy a priority after the restoration his figure is experiencing. Ostracism is now history.

“The grandfather did things”

The defense has found a story. Jordi Pujol Ferrusola explained that “the grandfather did things” to show that it was not strange for him to leave them money abroad: he was engaged in illegal currency trafficking during Franco's regime 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 y Soley made for the sake of building the country, 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 story is the multiplication of money abroad during the years CDC governed. The eldest son's argument is that the dowry money was invested in “financial instruments”, the maturity of which increased the sum and was distributed among the siblings. However, there is no traceability of all these operations. He has not proven them.

His luck is that, in a trial, it is the Prosecution who must prove guilt, and prosecutor Bermejo has also not yet provided conclusive evidence that everything came from illegal commissions in exchange for public works. And no businessman has confessed anything so far: there are no Aldamas in this case.

The week's details