The amnesty agreed by PSOE and Junts opens the door to the alleged 'lawfare': Boye, Borràs or los Pujol

Its inclusion will depend on the conclusions of the investigative commissions that will be created in the next legislature.

MADRID, 9 Nov. (EUROPA PRESS) -

The agreement closed this Thursday by the PSOE and Junts for the investiture of Pedro Sánchez as President of the Government contemplates an amnesty law that, according to what he points out, could end up including the alleged cases of 'lawfare' "or judicialization of politics", among the that would include those of the lawyer Gonzalo Boye, the president of Junts, Laura Borràs or the Pujol clan.

The agreement once again locates the origin of the "conflict" in the ruling of the Constitutional Court that in 2010 annulled several articles of the Statute of Autonomy of Catalonia and, from there, makes a report of events - from 9-N to 1- Or-- that they led to "multiple legal cases, many of them still unresolved, that affect a large number of people" and that "have had a relevant political impact."

They justify the amnesty law in the need to "seek full political, institutional and social normality as an essential requirement to address the challenges of the immediate future." And they specify that, to do so, "it must include both those responsible and the citizens who, before and after the 2014 consultation and the 2017 referendum, have been the subject of decisions or judicial processes linked to these events."

Although they do not detail who, they do state that during the next legislature investigative commissions will be established whose conclusions will be taken into account for "the application of the amnesty law to the extent that situations falling within the concept of lawfare or judicialization of politics could arise. with the consequences that, where appropriate, may give rise to liability actions or legislative modifications".

In this way, the door is opened for the amnesty to cover those so-called 'lawfare' cases, among which the pro-independence world places those of Boye, Borràs, the Pujols or that of ex-Minister of the Interior Miquel Buch and the police officer Lluís Escolà

Regarding Boye, Puigdemont's lawyer, the Criminal Chamber of the National Court (AN) confirmed in November 2022 the decision of the Central Court of Instruction Number 3 to send him to trial for an alleged crime of money laundering within the of what is known as 'Operation Mito' in which the Galician drug trafficker José Ramón Prado Bugallo --'Sito Miñanco'-- and 47 other people are also prosecuted.

The investigator of the summary, María Tardón, prosecuted the lawyer in 2021 for his alleged participation in the operation to recover 889,620 euros that the Police had seized from members of the 'Sito Miñanco' organization at the Barajas airport. The Prosecutor's Office asks that he be sentenced to 9 years in prison.

These human couriers who transported the money hidden in suitcases bound for Colombia were arrested in 2017. According to the judicial report, it was then that the 'narcos' contacted Boye and another lawyer, Jesús Morán Castro, to prepare some documents that justified the legal origin of money.

Thus, both Boye and two other lawyers will sit in the dock, if the amnesty law does not prevent it, for their alleged involvement in the preparation of documents and contracts for the sale of bills of exchange to recover the seized money.

The conviction of Borràs for prevarication and falsification of documents would also enter into the equation. Last March, the Superior Court of Justice (TSJ) of Catalonia sentenced her to 4 and a half years in prison and 13 years of disqualification for splitting contracts to award them to a friend when she directed the Institution of Catalan Letters (ILC) between 2013. and 2018.

The TSJ itself, however, proposed a partial pardon for Borrás that would reduce the prison sentence to no more than two years, so that he would not have to go to jail. In addition, a court judge added a dissenting opinion in which she defended that she should not be sentenced to more than 21 months in prison.

Borràs was convicted for some assignments related to the ILC website. According to the ruling, it was she who placed the order directly and personally even before the ILC board approved the project, "despite knowing that by doing so she dispensed with the mandatory administrative contracting procedure."

The TSJ stressed that ILC officials warned Borràs that she had to adapt the contracting procedure, given the size and cost of the assignment, but she - as the director of the contracting body - "decided to simulate the awarding of the works already entrusted" to his friend through minor contracts.

Borràs' sentence is not yet final, since his defense announced that it would appeal to the Supreme Court.

The time frame to which the amnesty law is limited - from 2012 to 2023, as announced by the PSOE - would also cover the case related to the former president of Catalonia between 1980 and 2003, Jordi Pujol, and his seven children.

The family is awaiting trial for allegedly forming a criminal organization that took advantage of "its privileged position" in Catalan political, social and economic life to accumulate an "excessive wealth."

Anti-corruption requests 9 years in prison for Jordi Pujol and up to 29 for his first-born son, Jordi Pujol Ferrusola. For the rest of the clan the sentences range from 14 to 8 years. The State Attorney's Office, on the other hand, does not turn against the patriarch, asking for 25 years in prison for her eldest son and between 4 and 17 and a half years for the others.

The first investigator of the case, José De la Mata, confirmed that part of those "corrupt activities" that the family had committed coincided in time with the Pujol Presidency, although they would have continued beyond his departure from office, generating "million-dollar amounts" that he separated from the family inheritance of grandfather Florensi Pujol claimed by the defendants.

The judge located the origin of the money in illicit payments made by third parties, mostly linked to companies, who made million-dollar payments to the family, hidden under corporate structures and using tax havens. And this in exchange for a "compensation" that involved the Pujols exercising "specific influence" for awards and concessions "throughout the Catalan geographic space."

Likewise, the agreement would benefit Buch, who last September was sentenced for embezzlement and prevarication to 4 and a half years in prison and 20 years of disqualification for appointing the mosso d'esquadra Lluís Escolà as a position of trust to escort Puigdemont in the foreigner after the application of article 155 of the Constitution in Catalonia.

The Barcelona Court considered it proven that Escolà accompanied Puigdemont to Belgium and that he combined medical leave, vacations and leave to escort the former president in his free time.

During the trial, Buch and Escolà's defenses demanded acquittal. The former Catalan councilor denied that he had appointed the Mosso as an advisor so that he could continue escorting him and stated that he "never" spoke with the former president about his protection service. Furthermore, he attacked the directors of the Mossos d'Esquadra investigation, considering that the case against him was "loaded with subjectivity, prejudices, errors and bad faith."

In this case, the sentence is not yet final, since the defenses announced that they would present appeals before the TSJ of Catalonia.