After almost six months, the trial of the Pujol case is now reaching its final stage and, if the court's optimistic forecasts are met, it will be ready for sentencing on Thursday. This Monday, the statements of the accused concluded with the four businessmen who were left pending ten days ago. At half past eight in the morning, the lawyers were having a relaxed football chat while waiting to be let in. And, behind the scenes, journalists and lawyers took advantage of the breaks to make predictions about what the prosecutor's verdict would be. Finally, Fernando Bermejo has opted to maintain the prison sentence requests that the Anticorruption Prosecutor's Office initially requested: 29 years for Jordi Pujol Ferrusola, 17 years for Mercè Gironès – his ex-wife –, 14 years for Josep Pujol, 8 years for his brothers, and 5 years for the nine businessmen. "If there has been no common sense so far, why will there be now?" one of the lawyers wondered a little earlier. And another advised excluding the businessmen who have nothing to do with public works: "Among private individuals, it is much more difficult to maintain the accusation and the Supreme Court's filter is not easy to overcome," he warned. But the prosecutor has pressed on.

"I didn't even have the office key," Mercè Gironès defended herself this Wednesday at the National Court (AN), "nor the alarm code," but she did "stop by to say hello some days." Mother of three, Jordi Pujol Ferrusola's ex-wife is accused of a total of five crimes, for which the Prosecutor's Office is requesting 17 years in prison, allegedly committed while she was the administrator of several companies owned by her ex-husband. "When we get married, we make a verbal agreement that everything we earn from now on will be 50%," stated the eldest son this Monday, one of the few statements he made regarding his ex-wife, as he did not want to talk about her because: "she is the mother of my children" and because "she has never deceived me." A "gallantry," as Gironès's lawyer states, which seems to be due to a warning from the couple's children to their father.

The inheritance from grandfather Florenci has focused the second part of Jordi Pujol Ferrusola's statement at the National Court, which ended up lasting more than six hours. In a session monopolized by the prosecutor's questions, the eldest son of the former president of the Generalitat explained how he managed to multiply grandfather Florenci's inheritance: the original 140 million pesetas (0.8 million euros) turned into six million euros thanks —he repeated fifteen times— to "financial sheets", a concept he already used in 2015 when he testified in the Barcelona courts. However, eleven years ago, in the Parliament of Catalonia, the CEO of Andbank in Spain, Rafael Gascó, replied that he did not know what they were: "It is the first time I have heard the name of this instrument in 35 years of banking experience," he said. The eldest son of the former president of the Generalitat has pointed out that in twenty years he made between 20,000 and 25,000 movements.

After the decision to exclude President Jordi Pujol from the case, the main event at the National High Court has been the testimony of his eldest son, for whom the Prosecutor's Office is seeking 29 years in prison for five crimes. The first session lasted almost three hours, until his lawyer asked to end it upon seeing him "manifestly tired". Prosecutor Fernando Bermejo has dedicated himself to reviewing his businesses in detail, and the firstborn has defended his work tooth and nail. "What I have done is well done" and "there is nothing to hide", he claimed at two points during the interrogation.

Junts per Catalunya will accompany Jordi Pujol to San Fernando de Henares to "show him support". Next Monday, the former president of the Generalitat must go in person to the National Court so that a forensic doctor can examine him and the tribunal that is judging his family and nine businessmen can determine whether or not to keep him on the defendants' bench. If the decision is not to exempt him, he will subsequently have to testify as a defendant. Despite this, the forensic doctors said in November that "he is not in physical or cognitive condition" to be tried.

The National High Court does not want to fall into ageism –discrimination based on age– with Jordi Pujol. As the ARA has learned, this is how the president of the court judging the Pujol case, José Ricardo de Prada, argued at the start of Friday's trial session, the last one before the defendants' statements. It comes three days after it became known that the former president of the Generalitat will have to travel to Madrid on Monday for a forensic doctor to examine him and certify whether he is in a condition to continue on the defendants' bench. "The court does not want to fall into ageism," Judge Prada stated before the public session began and after one of the Pujol family's lawyers asked him to address the issue. In other words, they do not want to stop summoning him due to his advanced age. However, Jordi Pujol is not only 95 years old, but he also has markers of Alzheimer's in his blood. "I want Mr. Jordi Pujol Soley to participate in the proceedings with the certainty that he is in a condition to endure the trial," the judge added. "The court does not start from prejudice, it wants to see exactly his capabilities to determine whether he should continue or not," he concluded. Jordi Pujol's defense has opted not to file any new written submissions because they consider the decision to have been made and there is no room for modification. And they are leaning towards Jordi Pujol traveling to Madrid by car. It is not yet known for certain whether he will enter through the parking lot or not.

The trial against the Pujol Ferrusola family has entered its final stretch. This week has been dominated by the experts proposed by the prosecution and the defense to assess the business dealings of the eldest son of the former president of the Generalitat. And the highlight has been the confrontation between two tax experts and three specialists proposed by the firstborn's defense, which began on Tuesday and will conclude next Friday in an extraordinary session. In total, it will amount to over ten hours of testimony.

After three months of listening to witnesses, the trial against the Pujol Ferrusola family is immersed in the declarations of experts, who must shed light on the business dealings of the eldest son of the former president of the Generalitat. Two of those who appeared this Tuesday at the Audiencia Nacional were names that emerged in the media in July in the framework of the Montoro case: Francisco Piedras and Manuel de Vicente-Tutor. They are tax inspectors, they are managing partners of Equipo Económico – the firm founded by Cristóbal Montoro and which is at the epicenter of the alleged corruption scheme – and they are being investigated by the courts of Tarragona.

Does the fortune of the Pujols in Andorra come from the famous inheritance of grandfather Florenci or from illegal commissions in exchange for political favors? This is the big question that is being tried to be clarified in a trial that already has 24 sessions and has brought 200 witnesses before the National Court so far. The interrogations, with recurring technical problems and repeated memory lapses, are focusing particularly on the operations carried out by Jordi Pujol Ferrusola, who faces 29 years in prison for five crimes. Many witnesses have accredited the eldest son's role as an intermediary: he offered "many business opportunities" to businessmen – it was all relationships between private individuals – and in return, he received compensation if the project was successful. However, the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office believes that the money movements served to mask commissions that responded to a "network of clientelism" that his father had woven from the Generalitat. For the moment, this favoritism has not been proven during the trial.

"Reverend Father, I am the Mother Superior of the congregation. I would like you to transfer two missals from my library to the parish chaplain's library." The letter, written in code by Marta Ferrusola, went viral even before things started going viral. The wife of former president Jordi Pujol was giving orders to transfer money between the family's accounts in Andorra. And this Wednesday, it was the turn of "Reverend Father" to testify. Josep Maria Pallerola, who was the Pujols' first manager in Andorra, admitted before the court that he was nicknamed "Father" because he had "a priest's face." It was prosecutor Fernando Bermejo who brought the matter to light. famous handwritten note that Ferrusola sent to Banca Reig. "I remember they called me 'Father' somewhat jokingly," Pallerola confessed.

Francesc Sánchez (Sant Boi, 1971) is Oriol Pujol's lawyer in the trial currently taking place at the Audiència Nacional. During the preliminary questions, he denounced that the start of the investigation was "unlawful" and responded to the "will" of "part of the State apparatus" to want to "influence" the independence process. A few weeks ago, he provided the documentation from the case underway in Andorra regarding the disappearance of Banca Privada d'Andorra to prove the intervention of State sewers. The former legal representative of Convergència is confident that the pending witness statements from Celestino Barroso –former Interior attaché at the Andorran embassy– and Joan Pau Miquel –former CEO of BPA– will support this and celebrates that the president of the court, José Ricardo de Prada, "put a stop" to José Manuel Villarejo.

Since the court in the Pujol trial accepted that José Manuel Villarejo and other members of the patriotic police would testify as witnesses, there was a lot of expectation –especially in the media– about what they would say. They were to answer about the obtaining of banking information from the family of the former president of the Generalitat, which was leaked to El Mundo, and about the genesis of the criminal case, which started more than ten years ago. However, they have provided few specifics, few certainties, and many shadows of doubt on all the questions the defense attorneys have asked them. With contradictory statements that have been denied by journalistic investigations and revelations in recent years.

Since the Pujol case trial court accepted that José Manuel Villarejo and other members of the patriotic police When they testified as witnesses, there was much anticipation—more from the media than the courts—to hear what they would say. They had to answer questions about the maneuvers they carried out to illegally obtain banking information from the family of the former president of the Generalitat—information that was leaked to The World—and regarding the origins of the criminal case—which began more than ten years ago following a complaint filed by Vicky Álvarez, the eldest son's former lover, encouraged by Villarejo. However, the four witnesses who have testified have provided few concrete details and few certainties, and instead have offered a display of evasiveness and sown many shadows of doubt.

While the trial of the Pujol Ferrusola family continues at the National Court – accused, among other things, of illicit association and money laundering – Salvador Illa makes a second approach to Jordi Pujol and Soley. After the first meeting within the framework of the round Illa met with former presidents of the Generalitat last Friday at the Palau de Pedralbes because the current Catalan president wanted to inquire about Pujol's health, who a few weeks ago He was hospitalized for pneumonia.According to sources within the Generalitat who spoke to ARA, the news was first reported. The VanguardThis coincides with the fourth day of the trial, which is being held in San Fernando de Henares. Three weeks ago, the National Court decided continue judging Jordi Pujol and Soley although the medical reports They advised against it

Florenci Pujol i Brugat was an interesting character. He made most of his considerable fortune by trafficking in the scarcest commodity in an autarkic dictatorship: the foreign currency that allowed the Catalan textile industry to import and export. Now, 45 years after his death in 1980, he is at the center of a trial against his son Jordi and seven of his grandchildren. It is curious that Pau Ferrer, the lawyer for four of the former president's children (Marta, Mireia, Pere, and Oleguer), presented the book as evidence for the defense in the first session of the trial. Banca Catalana. More than a bank, more than a crisisThat book was written by Siscu Baiges, Jaume Reixach, and myself after a long and unpleasant investigation: Jordi Pujol's bankrupt bank was a taboo subject, and no one wanted to speak openly about it. Pressure and threats abounded, both before and after publication. The book marked the lives of the three of us in one way or another.

The prosecutor in the Pujol family trial stated this morning that "Political issues cannot be introduced into a procedural, legal, and substantive matter such as the investigation and prosecution of crimes." The statement is so perfect that if you asked an actor to say it... Poland And adding canned laughter in the background would work as a gag.

The patriotic police The issue has resurfaced in the trial of the Pujol Ferrusola family. While on Monday and Tuesday the defense lawyers denounced the "contamination" of Operation Catalonia at the very beginning of the case and the "original sin" of the investigation, the Public Prosecutor's Office and the State Attorney's Office sought to draw a line between the state's dirty tricks and the trial that began on Monday at the National Court. "No evidence has been manipulated for ulterior motives, and it has been obtained with full respect for the rights of the accused," asserted prosecutor Fernando Bermejo. He reprimanded the lawyers for stirring up "political rumors" and "unsubstantiated hypotheses" by turning them into grounds for annulment and for attempting to get the court to consider "alleged maneuvers and irregularities unrelated to the facts being judged." "Political issues cannot be introduced into a procedural, legal, and substantive matter such as the investigation and prosecution of crimes," he concluded.

"What am I doing here?" "What am I defending myself against?" These are two questions that have been raised by two of the lawyers for the accused businessmen in the trial of the Pujol Ferrusola family which summarize the impotence expressed by the rest of the defense teams during the second session. They all converged in repeatedly denouncing violations of the right to a defense, the right to a fair trial, the right to effective judicial protection, and the adversarial principle. Basically, they believe that the facts that have brought them to trial are vague and indeterminate, and that their description can only lead to exoneration.

Although doctors have assessed that Jordi Pujol was not in a physical or cognitive condition to participate in the trial, the National Court has refused to exonerate him and is requiring him to participate remotely. From a television perspective, this has resulted in a very close first look at Jordi Pujol, very vulnerable and glued to the computer screen. The programs have already selected this image as the primary and emblematic one of the proceedings. Pujol's face, pressed against the computer camera, his nose practically touching the screen, will become an icon of the trial. Beyond the reasonable doubts about whether the former president has adequate hearing of what is happening in the courtroom, this image is by no means neutral. On Monday, Toni Cruanyes opened the Evening news with this close-up projected onto one of the enormous vertical screens to his side, oversizing the image. Performing one of those theatrical displays typical of Sesame Street In the segment dedicated to us viewers, the presenter said: "Jordi Pujol testified via videoconference, and that's the image we saw of him," proof that this framing is unusual and provokes a certain amount of astonishment. On Tuesday morning, Ana Rosa Quintana also used it, choosing precisely the moment when Jordi Pujol sniffled, accentuating the decrepitude that the scene already suggests.

The first day of the Pujol Ferrusola family trial left two images for the history books: the former president of the Generalitat following the proceedings remotely from his home, and his seven children seated in the dock. It also highlighted two distinct yet complementary defense strategies: one that emphasizes the National Court's lack of jurisdiction to try the case and the statute of limitations on the alleged crimes, and another that stresses the impact of Operation Catalonia.