The court rejects the wiretaps and two police officers accused of planting drugs on a dockworker are acquitted.

The Barcelona Court has acquitted the two Mossos d'Esquadra officers accused of collaborating with a drug trafficking plot The prosecution had requested 18 years and 9 months in prison for the two officers for planting drugs and weapons in the car of a dockworker at the port of Barcelona, ​​Carlos L. However, the court acquitted them because it did not consider it sufficiently proven that they participated in planting the drugs. Furthermore, the court annulled the wiretaps, finding that there was insufficient evidence to justify such measures and that the suspicions regarding their involvement in the scheme had weak supporting evidence. The Fifth Section of the Barcelona Provincial Court, as reported by EFE, also acquitted the other two defendants in the trial held in November: a former Desokupa employee and martial arts instructor, and his nephew, both mechanics. According to the prosecution's theory, both officers were the ones who planted the drugs and weapons in the dockworker's vehicle in June 2016. However, the two officers provided information about Carlos L. after consulting the Mossos d'Esquadra database. The officers, a corporal with over three decades of experience and a former port police officer, had been suspended without pay for four years, but were now back on active duty. The mastermind of the plot

According to the document, both officers, who faced four charges – drug trafficking, illegal possession of weapons, unlawful detention, and disclosure of secrets – bear "no responsibility" in the plot orchestrated against Carlos L., who during the trial He explained that behind this maneuver was David Caballero, the dockworker known as Bubito, who was murdered in November 2014 in Montgat, in the Maresme region, in a drug-related revenge killing. Carlos L. defended the theory that he was a "drug lord" who controlled the port and that he devised the plan against him because he had previously refused to work for him. The prosecutor maintained at the trial that, in accordance with a "preconceived plan," the two Mossos d'Esquadra officers—who were then assigned to the Sant Martí police station in Barcelona—provided "essential" information that they obtained on the afternoon of March 18, 2016, by consulting databases. Based on this information, according to the prosecution, the other two defendants surveilled Carlos L. to learn his routines, until June 15, 2016, when they carried out the operation to plant the drugs and weapons, taking advantage of the fact that he had parked his car in front of a gym in Barcelona. The Mossos d'Esquadra (Catalan police) suspected that the whole thing was a planned operation. On the day of Carlos L.'s arrest, a man who identified himself as Alberto called the Sant Martí police station and asked to speak with an officer named "Trini," a policeman known for having informants. Alberto reported that there was a car, a Volkswagen Golf, with drugs and weapons inside in the Francesc Macià area. This call, which was not the usual way informants contacted the officer, and the fact that they referred to him by his first name, raised suspicions within the Catalan police force.

It was then that Internal Affairs became involved in the case, having previously investigated the two officers for other matters. The court considers this irrelevant: "The fact that he had previously been investigated for other illicit activities does not appear to constitute evidence in this case, since evidence of involvement in these events, and not in previous ones, was required." For the judges of the Provincial Court, the "agreed measure" to carry out the wiretaps on the two officers is "clearly prospective."

Furthermore, the court considers that there is no "proven cause" to demonstrate that one of the protected witnesses received "external pressure" to change his testimony about the two officers: during the investigation he gave one account, and, however, during the trial he claimed to have "no recollection of the events." During the proceedings, both officers denied the prosecution's account and insisted that they did not participate "in any way" in this operation.