Editorial, 2 March 2023
The Court rules that the external action of the ‘procés’ should be judged with the case for the preparations for 1-O
The Audiencia unblocked one of the last obstacles to trying the organisers of the ‘procés’.
The Barcelona High Court considers that investigation into the “process” external expenses should be tried together with the case on the preparations for the referendum. This is stated in an order to which La Vanguardia has had access.
With this decision, after two years, one of the last stumbling blocks that paralysed the progress of the 1-O case, in which some forty former high-ranking officials of the Government have been charged, has been unblocked.
This investigation, which is being followed in Barcelona court 13, is the origin of the case that ended up convicting the pro-independence leaders and which led, for example, to the entry and search of the Ministry of Economy on 20 September 2017.
Following a report by the Court of Auditors in Court 18 that reviewed the expenses allocated to the external promotion of the pro-CPC and Diplocat, another investigation was opened. Some of those charged were the same in both courts.
Albert Royo and Aleix Villatoro, former senior officials of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, argued that they could not be tried twice for the same facts, and now the Court has given them the reason because it considers that there is a “connection” between the two cases. Therefore, all those charged in court 18 are now being investigated by court 13 in the case of the preparations for the referendum.
It so happens that the former minister Raúl Romeva, who was charged in the Diplocat case, will again be investigated because of the referendum, for which he has already been convicted by the Supreme Court.
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