Artadi and Dmitrenko deny the Russian plot of the

The former leader of Junts per Catalunya Elsa Artadi testified as a witness this Tuesday in Barcelona's investigating court number 1, before Judge Joaquín Aguirre, in the case investigating the Voloh plot, which investigates alleged Russian connections with the procés.

Thomas Osborne
Thomas Osborne
31 May 2022 Tuesday 05:34
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Artadi and Dmitrenko deny the Russian plot of the

The former leader of Junts per Catalunya Elsa Artadi testified as a witness this Tuesday in Barcelona's investigating court number 1, before Judge Joaquín Aguirre, in the case investigating the Voloh plot, which investigates alleged Russian connections with the procés.

According to sources present in the statement, the also former Minister of the Presidency has admitted that she participated in a meeting that lasted about 20 minutes at the Hotel Colón, due to her status as an economist, although she does not remember the date that meeting was, at the end of October , nor who else was. In addition, she has indicated that there was no follow-up of it, although a few days later there was a subsequent meeting of less than five minutes and brief in the Casa dels Canonges.

Sources from Artadi's environment point out that he has limited himself to answering all the questions and that he has made it clear that the Russian plot under investigation does not exist. According to judicial sources, at the end of the statement, which was brief, Judge Aguirre pointed out to Artadi that he appreciated that his statement lacked credibility, and warned him that as a witness he has the obligation to tell the truth.

This morning the Russian businessman Alexander Dmitrenko, who is linked to the head of the office of the former president of the Generalitat Carles Puigdemont, Josep Lluís Alay, has also declared, under investigation, that he has disassociated his meetings with Catalan leaders from the issue policy and has framed them in the corporate and business field during his statement.

According to legal sources, during his statement, Dmitrenko, when asked by the Catalan leaders' lawyers, pointed out that in 2017 Russia's position was to support the Government of Spain and not independence.

The former leader of the CatMón foundation, Víctor Terradellas, accused in the case and the main driver of contacts between the pro-independence leaders and the alleged Russian emissaries, had located Artadi in the second meeting that Carles Puigdemont had with the Russians.

In his statement before the judge, Terradellas explained that Artadi was present at one of the two meetings in which the former president participated, with Nicolay Sadovnikov, a former diplomat, and with former general Sergey Motin. The meeting, according to Terradellas' statements, took place in October 2017. According to him, those contacts took place at his request because he "was on his own", and without Puigdemont ordering or commissioning it. He also assured that the objective of those conversations was to explain the situation in Catalonia, just as they had done with envoys from other countries.

During the meeting, he specified, Carles Puigdemont was "stunned" and said that the Russians' offer to send 10,000 soldiers once independence had been declared and to finance the future Catalan state through cryptocurrencies seemed to him "a joke in bad taste".