Make yourself a copy. The Criminal Chamber of the National Court upheld the last resort of the lawyers defending the Pujol family, Martell Abogados and Carrillo Legal, the day before yesterday, and agrees that the court investigating them for alleged corruption verifies if, really, they cannot access the Cloud service, managed by the Ministry of Justice, to obtain copies of their own hard drives.
These were seized by the police in four operations between 2014 and 2017, and the Pujols have been trying to obtain a copy since March 2018. For two reasons: to be able to defend themselves in a case that accuses them of criminal organization and to be able to purge discs of strictly private content.
In the last year, the legal teams of the Pujols have come to draw up a notarial deed of the impossibility of accessing Cloud. The incorporation of this document has led the Criminal Chamber, against the criteria of the head of the Central Court of Instruction 5 of the National Court, Santiago Pedraz, and the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor, Belén Suárez, to admit that it be reviewed if it is true. that the system or the passwords provided do not work.
The resolution of the room, against which there is no appeal, urges Pedraz to "verify, using the IT staff he deems appropriate, whether it is the one mentioned in this resolution, whether it is another, if, as the appellant has alleged, providing notarial deed, it has been impossible for him, for reasons beyond his control and of pure computer operation, to access the Cloud digital platform”.
A Barcelona notary verified (1-Enter the Internet, 2-Access Google Chrome and type..., 3-Click on the first option... etc) that a large part of the documentation was not available to its owners.
The Pujol family's lawyers have been trying for 2,162 days to obtain a duplicate of their own computers, seized by the police between 2014 and 2017 in the operation for alleged money laundering and tax crime of the clan, but the judge has never allowed them to do a duplicate discs. In theory they are in the safe of Central Court 5, but magistrate Pedraz alleges that a copy of all this is also in the Cloud service of the Ministry of Justice.
The former president's family has asked to go to court with external storage ports, make a copy under judicial supervision and full stop, but they have always run into Pedraz and the prosecutor in the case, Belén Suárez. Both refer the Pujols to Cloud.
In one of her appeals, prosecutor Suárez argues that the Pujols "were given a full copy of what was seized from them, while, apparently, it was taken from them." And it is true: on November 23, 2020, the MRW van hired by the Pujol attorney suffered a film assault when she was transporting the computer equipment seized from the Pujols in those four searches to Barcelona.
At a traffic light, a black SUV pulls up in front of the MRW Fiat Ducato van, blocking its path. Four hooded men get out with guns, point their guns at the driver, break the passenger window with the butt, push the driver out and throw him to the ground. The assailants take off at full speed with the two vehicles.
La Vanguardia interviewed an MRW worker when the case was uncovered, almost a year later: “It was very spectacular, something like this had never happened to us,” Manuel said. "It wasn't normal." MRW denounced the theft and the Madrid Investigating Court 8 opened proceedings. The transport company was never questioned or investigated by the police, in case there had been any internal leak of information, although the drivers of the company are unaware of the contents of their transports.
The court closed the case seven months later "due to the lack of a known perpetrator."
Police sources explained to La Vanguardia then that the open investigations "did not give results."
The Pujol family considers the matter "shameful", and possibly the work of the so-called "state sewers" to seize their computers once they had passed through the hands of the judge.
Now, finally, they will be able to back up their hard drives.
Pedraz dictated on June 16, 2021 the opening of the oral trial against Jordi Pujol, his seven children and eleven other businessmen, allegedly involved in a corrupt plot.
The Prosecutor's Office requests nine years in prison for former president Pujol for the crimes of illicit association and money laundering. For his seven children, he requests sentences ranging from 8 to 29 years in prison; The one who suffers the most is Jordi Pujol Ferrusola.
In legal circles, no one believes that, given these delays, the case of alleged money laundering and tax crime involving the Pujols can be judged before 2024. Jordi Pujol is 93 years old.
