A judge leaves 45 police officers on the verge of trial for the charges of 1-O

The judge of court 7 of Barcelona has concluded the investigation of the case against agents of the National Police for the police charges in different schools in the Catalan capital during the celebration of the independence referendum of 1-O declared illegal by the Constitutional Court and It has left 45 police officers on the brink of trial for crimes of injury without ruling out that the injured could accuse them of other crimes such as torture.

Thomas Osborne
Thomas Osborne
30 January 2023 Monday 06:22
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A judge leaves 45 police officers on the verge of trial for the charges of 1-O

The judge of court 7 of Barcelona has concluded the investigation of the case against agents of the National Police for the police charges in different schools in the Catalan capital during the celebration of the independence referendum of 1-O declared illegal by the Constitutional Court and It has left 45 police officers on the brink of trial for crimes of injury without ruling out that the injured could accuse them of other crimes such as torture.

In a 69-page order, magistrate Francisco Miralles resolves to continue the proceedings against these 45 public officials of the National Police Corps, agrees to initiate abbreviated procedure against them and gives a period of 40 days to the accusations and defenses to present their pleadings. accusation and request the opening of an oral trial or the closing of the procedure. Likewise, he agrees to provisionally dismiss the proceedings against 17 other agents and definitively with respect to three others.

In addition, the judge leaves out of the case as a private accusation both the Professional Police Union and the Generalitat as owner of the affected centers. To the first for not having any private citizen accused of attacking authority, disobedience to an agent of authority or any crime, the objective of this union in his personification. To the second, having agreed in the same order to dismiss the procedure regarding the damage caused in schools and institutes.

Miralles, in his letter, leaves the door open so that the injured in the 27 centers in which the National Police acted that day in Barcelona can accuse the agents of torture or attack on their moral integrity, in addition to the crime of injury by the that investigates "The facts that will be said later and for which the procedure will proceed through the procedures of the abbreviated procedure may be constitutive, not only of minor or less serious crimes of injury, but also crimes of those provided for in articles 174 and 175 of the Criminal Code, without prejudice to their final classification, which this resolution cannot limit or condition," the magistrate said.

The judge makes a detailed account of what happened that day in different schools based on the witnesses collected and the existing videos and orders to continue with the procedure in all those cases in which he does not appreciate the proportionality in the actions of the agents required by law that regulates the operation of the State Security Forces and Corps after recalling that the agents were sent to Barcelona to comply with the order of the Superior Court of Justice of Catalonia (TSJC) that forced them to prevent the referendum "without affecting normal coexistence citizen".

Thus, for example, Miralles orders that the abbreviated procedure be continued for eight agents who acted in the Escola Mediterrània and points out that the agents "go directly towards the crowd and, without saying a word, warning or request, they begin to push to the people gathered there, initiating a violent situation of great confusion that is increasing to the point of observing people pushed to the ground, a person with a bloody face and an agent hitting with his defense in the face of the people who are already evicted" . For this reason, it concludes that "the proportionality required in the actions, as a whole, of the police officers cannot be appreciated, since they have not made any attempt to provide information, warning, mediation or any other pertinent one, as is known to have been done in other schools. the day of the events". "This direct action against the people gathered, who had no obligation to know what was happening or what was ordered by the TSJC, caused this school to have the high number of injured people that appears in the proceedings," underlines the order, which It stands out that among the injured there are elderly people (one of them 82 years old) and the need for medical treatment in some of the injured.

"Especially violent and disproportionate" seems to the judge the actions of the agents who acted in the Escoles Pies de Sant Antoni: "you can see agents punching, kicking, grabbing by the neck, throwing people to the ground and even hitting people with batons that he is no longer at the school gate nor does he have an aggressive attitude towards the officials", he points out.

The judge points out that the group in charge of police action in this school is the same as in the Mediterrània and Pau Claris centers, "in which it is worth noting the special disproportionality of the action and the aggressiveness of the agents", for which reason believes that the injuries can be attributed to the person in charge of the unit, given the "generalized and violent" behavior of its troops.

After learning of the order, Òmnium Cultural, which is part of the prosecution, has announced that it is considering requesting more charges and has described the court's ruling as a "necessary step to end police impunity, despite the belligerent position, the obstruction and the contempt towards the complainants by the Prosecutor's Office throughout the procedure". In this sense, Òmnium has ensured that civil society "is supplying the role of the Prosecutor's Office, which neglects its responsibility and obligation, in one of the largest legal cases against police violence in Europe."