The Minister of the Interior, Joan Ignasi Elena (ERC), has ruled out resigning for his management of the Mossos d'Esquadra after the dismissal of Commissioner Josep Maria Estela at the head of the police force ten months after having appointed him as he suggested this morning the first secretary of the PSC, Salvador Illa, and has refused to investigate the current number 1 of the body, Eduard Sallent, as a result of the information that indicates that he would have requested access to all the investigations, which in turn, according to other information, would have brought investigative agents to work outside the system.
However, in an interview on RAC1, Elena, who will appear at her own request in the Parliament's Interior Committee next Tuesday to explain the change in the police leadership, has denied that there have been attempts to hinder Mossos investigations by of some controls.
On the other hand, the head of the Interior has once again justified the dismissal of Estela "for not sharing the pace of feminization of the Mossos" and the change in the "more choral" management model that, in his opinion, requires a body of 22,000 agents to make it closer to the citizenry, "more community", with a prefecture of three or four people with "different but complementary profiles". "Differences with respect to things that correspond to me to decide as the model", he insisted.
"I would leave if I was tired, first; second, if the president asked me to and, third, if I did something that was incorrect, illegal, but not for doing things that respond to my powers", Elena has indicated in response to the almost simultaneous words of Illa in Catalunya Ràdio, where the leader of the opposition has opined that the head of the Interior "should go home" because, in his opinion, "he has done it fatal" while at the same time accusing him of " political interference", extreme that the minister has denied.
At this point, the head of the Interior has taken the opportunity to charge against the person in charge of the socialist branch, the former Minister of Unió Ramon Maria Espadaler, of whom he has recalled that he hired "0 mossos, 0 mossas, 0 firefighters..." . "He is the minister zero", Elena has ironized. "One thing is the legitimate differences and another thing is to try to dirty the body and its controls," the Minister has reproached the Socialists.
And Espadaler has not been the only predecessor of hers in the position that Elena has criticized, who has been very upset by the recent words of Miquel Sàmper (Junts) in the sense that "there are commanders who obstruct the investigation of policemen who do of cinema to try to know things that have happened in this country". "And he doesn't denounce that and doesn't transfer it to his successor, doesn't he open a reserved information, an investigation?" Elena asked herself. "It's just that it's very strong, forgive me for getting so angry!" She exclaimed.
However, the head of the Interior has defended Sallent, to whom all these accusations point, and has now refused to open an investigation when, as he has assured, "there is no complaint and nobody has told me anything" about it. Likewise, he has asserted that he does not share that it is said that he puts Sallent at the head of the body to control it politically. In this sense, the Minister wanted to emphasize that at first it was said that Sallent had put it by Junts and Estela, ERC. "Well, now we find ourselves with Sallent in an ERC Government", he confirmed.
As if that were not enough, Elena has assured that Sallent is not the provisional head of the Mossos right now, as has been implied since Estela's dismissal, and that it is not planned to replace him in January by the mayor Rosa Bosch.
The head of the Interior has also revealed, as a curiosity, that it was Sallent who at the time proposed Estela as chief commissioner while the dismissed man had recommended Sallent. Finally, as he has related, it was the current number 1 who convinced Estela to take office.
In another order of things, the Minister of the Interior has recognized that if it were up to him he would escort the former president of the Generalitat Carles Puigdemont but has admitted that he cannot do so as an authorization from the Ministry of the Interior is necessary, which he is not willing to give. "I think the president should have an escort," Elena has made clear, who has warned that if he did so, it would cause the disqualification of whoever authorized it and the agent who was going to perform the function. The Republican has revealed that he has unsuccessfully talked about it with his Spanish counterpart, Fernando Grande Marlaska. Likewise, he has pointed out that none of his predecessors did so under the presidency of Quim Torra, "neither Sàmper nor Buch".
