While waiting to know how the final text looks for a new vote in the plenary session of Congress, the national leadership of the PP assumes that the amnesty law will go ahead. In the hard core of Alberto Núñez Feijóo They are convinced that PSOE and Junts will reach an agreement, although everything is still pending regarding the two great demands of Carles Puigdemont: that everything related to terrorism be included in the pardon and that high treason be also included now that the European Parliament calls for investigation the relations of the independence movement with the Kremlin.
The edge of the Russian plot in the ‘procés’ and the interest that has been seen in recent days in Brussels has displaced the debate on whether or not there was terrorism that had been tensioning national politics for so long. The order of the judge of the National Court, Manuel García Castellón, last November opened a path that has made the ‘former president’ very nervous. The legal discussion became more than evident in the board of prosecutors of the Supreme Court This week. And the PP has been insisting for some time that there was “terror” in many moments of the protests and riots in Barcelona against the TS ruling.
However, despite the offensive deployed in this regardsources close to Feijóo They now recognize that they see “difficulties” so that it can be truly proven that Puigdemont committed terrorist crimes.
Many prominent PP leaders have affirmed that there was terrorism. Isabel Diaz Ayuso He has done it in public interventions, rallies and interviews. And Feijóo himself declared during the party’s last demonstration in the Plaza de España in Madrid a couple of weeks ago: “What an insult to say to the police that they did not suffer violence and terrorist acts” in the ‘procés’. It was the time in which he was most forceful about it.
Days later and, above all, since Pedro Sanchez stated in Brussels that “there will be amnesty for all pro-independence supporters because they are not terrorists”, the conservatives are avoiding saying whether in their opinion we can talk about terrorism or not. They accuse the President of the Government of “posing as a judge” and demand that he let the instructors do their work.
They also accuse the Executive of try to influence the Supreme Court Prosecutor’s Office after the board of prosecutors dealt a setback to the person in charge of the first report, prosecutor Álvaro Redondo, who said he did not see enough signs of terrorism to charge Puigdemont. Twelve of these prosecutors, compared to three, do appreciate terrorism in the case of Tsunami Democràtic, and 11 of them (compared to 4) also consider that it is enough to charge the Catalan ‘former president’ with that crime. Now it will be the number two of the State Attorney General, María Ángeles Sánchez Conde, who will set the criteria.
The situation has been complicated but he PP has also changed its strategy: from stating that there was terrorism to avoiding speaking out in order to distinguish oneself from the Government. And, above all, now, at the national level, they affirm that they see it as difficult to prove that Puigdemont directed terrorist acts. “I am not a judge. I do not dare to describe crimes as terrorism,” Feijóo stated at a rally in the town of Sarria (Lugo).
The popular ones also revolt against Puigdemont’s recent accusations in a letter he wrote in response to the European Parliament asking to investigate his ties with Russia. That European resolution, they remember in the PP, It went ahead with the support of the Socialist Party. Those around Feijóo ironically wonder “if it is the PP’s fault that a judge from Barcelona investigates something that the Government of Spain itself supports investigating in Europe.” They do it in reference to Judge Joaquín Aguirre.
And that reflection delves into the belief they have in Genoa that The Executive “has deceived” Puigdemont promising him something he could not have: the security of absolute protection when it is the judges who must apply the amnesty law. In fact, the PP also analyzed that Junts request last summer for 24 hours to conclude that it was unconstitutional, contrary to European law and that it could not be done.
The MEP, who fled Spain to avoid being tried, assured in his letter that the entire current procedure on terrorism and what has to do with Russia would not be happening if his party had made Feijóo president instead of Sánchez. Conservative sources call Puigdemont’s insistence that his party be able to direct the ongoing investigations as a “joke.” And they compare it with the recent news about Operation Catalonia: “It’s a joke too. What’s new about that? Let them be made available to the judges, they ironically.