The head of the Local Police of Pineda (Barcelona) denies hearing threats to the hotel that housed police officers on 1-O

The Prosecutor's Office reduces the prison request for coercion to two and a half years and adds an accusation for not prosecuting a crime

   BARCELONA, 18 Ene. (EUROPA PRESS) -

The head of the Local Police of Pineda de Mar (Barcelona), Carles Santacreu, has denied that he heard threats from PSC councilors to the manager of the hotel in the municipality that housed agents of the National Police on 1-O during the meeting --a the one he also attended-- in which the deputy mayor Jordi Masnou allegedly told him that if he didn't throw the policemen out, he would close the hotel.

Santacreu said this Wednesday at the Barcelona Court during the second session of the trial for an alleged crime of coercion, in which Masnou and the former mayor Carme Aragonès acknowledged the facts this Tuesday and agreed to a sentence of one year in prison and disablement

On the other hand, Santacreu denies the accusations of the prosecutor - who has reduced the sentence he is asking for for alleged coercion from three to two and a half years - and has assured that, if he had heard any threat during the meeting, "he would have opened proceedings ".

In the process of final conclusions, the prosecutor has added an alternative request for a sentence for Santacreu in the event that the court does not sentence him for coercion: he has added the accusation for "failing to comply" with his police status and allegedly not prosecuting a crime that it happened in front of him, and he asks the judges to sentence him to 15 months of disqualification and a fine of 13,500 euros for this crime.

The head of the Local Police has answered the questions from all parties except the Prosecutor's Office, has assured that he "looked at the needs" of the police officers staying at the hotel, and has given as an example that he set up an area with cones in front of the building so they could park, and he has said that when he saw that there were protesters in the place, he notified the Mossos.

"I am a colleague of the National Police, the Civil Guard and the Mossos d'Esquadra, and I work with the maximum possible impartiality and justice", declared Santacreu.

Aragonès and Masnou have declared to questions from the prosecutor and their defense to ratify that they recognize the facts of which they are accused.

Aragonès has assured that "at no time was the threat used" and has stated that the notice that the hotel could be closed referred to the fact that it did not comply with various regulations.

For his part, Masnou has said that the situation got out of hand and has admitted that he said they could close the hotel for five years, and has qualified: "Mention was made of irregularities in the license of some of the hotels. There was talk that adapting the hotels could take about five years. Closure could be caused by all these irregularities."

This Wednesday two police officers have also testified as witnesses who have affirmed that the head of the Local Police carried out "counter-surveillance" in the hotel to find out what time they entered and left the building, something that Santacreu has denied.

The two policemen watched the meeting between the councilors and the hotel manager from outside the glass-walled office, but did not hear what they were talking about.

The ERC councilor Mònica Palacín, who was at the meeting but has not been accused, has also testified: she has assured that neither she nor Santacreu spoke inside the office and has said that it was a "very tense" situation because the police officers watched and recorded them. through the window of the room.