Vergés and Argimon, on the defendant's bench: the trial for covid vaccination begins

BarcelonaThis Tuesday begins the trial of former officials of the Department of Health for "discriminating" police officers and civil guards in the vaccination campaign against covid. Both the Prosecutor's Office and the police unions Jupol and Jucil accuse those who led the ministry at the time of having "paralyzed" vaccination for these agents and not prioritizing them over the general population, as they did with other emergency services. Among the figures provided by the accusers is the vaccination rate for agents: at a time when the vaccination rate was 2.8% among civil guards and 3.6% among national police officers, among the Mossos d'Esquadra and the Barcelona Urban Guard it reached 77%.

On the defendants' bench at the Barcelona Court will sit the then Minister of Health, Alba Vergés, and the then Director General of the Catalan Health Institute (ICS), Josep Maria Argimon, who later became Secretary of Public Health and Minister of Health. The Prosecutor's Office attributes to both of them an alleged crime of prevarication and requests a sentence of 12 years of disqualification from holding public office, although neither of them currently holds any position in the Government. On the other hand, the police unions are demanding a sentence of three years in prison and 15 years of disqualification, and in addition to prevarication, they also accuse them of a crime against workers' rights.

Former Secretary General of Health Marc Ramentol and former director of CatSalut Adrià Comella, who is now the managing director at the Hospital de la Santa Creu i Sant Pau, face the same requests. The accused will not testify until the final stage of the trial, from Friday the 10th to Wednesday the 15th of July. In fact, Tuesday's session has been reserved solely for the technical procedure of preliminary matters. Police commanders will testify on Wednesday, and the rest of the witnesses will do so on the 6th and 7th. The former Secretary of Public Health Carmen Cabezas – who was investigated at the beginning of the investigation – the then director of the professional area of CatSalut Sara Manjón, and also the former delegate of the Spanish government Teresa Cunillera, will appear in court.

"They were aware of it"

The accusations focus on the decisions of the Health leadership around February 2021. On the 9th, the Interterritorial Council of the National Health System decided to prioritize vaccination with AstraZeneca for groups with special functions, such as police officers. Three days later, the ministry began vaccinating these groups, respecting the age restriction in place at the time for this vaccine, which was only administered to people between 18 and 55 years old. On March 15, the Interterritorial Council decided to halt all AstraZeneca vaccinations due to detected thrombosis cases, but a week later it reauthorized this vaccine, now without age limitations. In fact, they decided to prioritize the population between 60 and 65 years old.

According to the accusations, Health officials opted to prioritize this age group to the detriment of police officers, despite the fact that among the Civil Guards and National Police there was a much lower vaccination rate than among the Mossos and the Urban Guard. As described by the prosecutor in the indictment, the defendants were "fully aware that with this decision, police officers from state bodies were, in fact, being discriminated against".

During the investigation of the case, the defense of Argimon and Carmen Cabezas has provided the court with messages indicating that Vergés would have ordered not to prioritize agents in vaccination. Among other evidence to be debated in the trial, there is a message from an advisor to Vergés that stated: "Once again, the minister asks to stop the Civil Guard and National Police. We cannot argue it. We should stop it".

Before this criminal case that is now going to trial, the vaccination of police officers against covid was the subject of civil litigation in which the Superior Court of Justice of Catalonia (TSJC) sentenced the Generalitat for discriminating against agents of the national police and civil guards and forced them to be vaccinated within 10 days.