Lluís Puig appeals Llarena's indictment and asks to withdraw the embezzlement

He affirms that his Ministry did not make "any order" or payment related to 1-O

   BARCELONA, 18 Ene. (EUROPA PRESS) -

Former Minister Lluís Puig has appealed the indictment issued last week by Supreme Court (TS) magistrate Pablo Llarena for alleged disobedience and embezzlement on 1-O, and has demanded that this second offense be withdrawn.

Puig's lawyer, Miquel Sàmper, has filed the appeal, to which Europa Press has had access, as a result of the indictment that Llarena issued when reviewing the case of Puig and other 1-O leaders abroad since 2017 as a result of the reform of the Criminal Code, which eliminated the crime of sedition and modified that of embezzlement.

The alleged embezzlement refers to the expenses on ballots, the electoral census and the summons to people who are members of the polling stations, carried out by Unipost and which, according to Puig's defense, the Generalitat did not pay.

Puig's defense considers that, as of the 1-O ruling, "all the facts that bring about the contracting of Unipost by the Generalitat must be eliminated from the aforementioned indictment -- as potentially punishable acts --, insofar as the effects of res judicata fall upon them."

It adds that nothing can be attributed to Puig that is not in the 1-O ruling, "and according to it, it has been declared as true that there was a relationship between the Generalitat de Catalunya and Unipost, S.A., as there was not a single cent of expense or payment".

Sàmper reaffirms that the Ministry of Culture, which in 2017 was directed by Puig, did not make "any assignment, or any expense or payment file, neither budgetary nor extra-budgetary, related to the referendum of October 1, 2017" based on a certificate issued by the department in 2018.

The lawyer adds that, in the prosecution of Puig after the penal reform, "the key to elucidate about the typicity of the conduct will be, with the new legislation, the concept of profit, which the doctrine defines as the intention of enrichment own or a third party with a patrimonial or economic sense".