The Congress will investigate the police network in Andorra that involves the PP

The Congress of Deputies will investigate the alleged police network involving the former minister of the PP Government, Jorge Fernández Díaz, in the so-called Operation Catalunya, led by a judge from Andorra.

Thomas Osborne
Thomas Osborne
28 June 2022 Tuesday 09:56
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The Congress will investigate the police network in Andorra that involves the PP

The Congress of Deputies will investigate the alleged police network involving the former minister of the PP Government, Jorge Fernández Díaz, in the so-called Operation Catalunya, led by a judge from Andorra.

The Board of Spokespersons, with the majority support of the PSOE, United We Can, ERC, EH-Bildu, JxCat, PdeCat, the CUP and BNG, has decided to create an investigation commission on the alleged interference with the sovereignty of Andorra by those responsible Spanish politicians and "para-police networks" in the framework of Operation Catalunya.

A request for a commission that was registered by the Catalan and Basque independence parties on June 17 and that will be debated in the plenary session of Congress, although the parliamentary spokesman for the PSOE, Héctor Gómez, has stated that "it will certainly go ahead."

"To start it up as soon as possible and work rigorously to shed light on some audio of a former PP minister that is very alarming and worrying," Gómez stressed after noting that the former Interior Minister Fernández-Díaz denied his link with that operation in Andorra when he appeared in Congress for the Kitchen case.

In this sense, the Table of the Congress studies a report of the lawyers on the petition that the Basque and Catalan nationalist parties registered for the Congress to take the appropriate measures and transfer to the Public Prosecutor's Office the statements of the former minister when he lacked the truth in Kitchen commission.

These parties recalled in their brief article 502.3 of the Criminal Code, which states that anyone who "summoned a parliamentary commission of investigation fails to tell the truth in his testimony will be punished with a prison sentence of six months to one year or a fine of 12 to 24 months".

Sources from the Congress Table tell EFE that no decision has yet been made in this regard about his transfer to the Public Prosecutor's Office, although the PSOE leaves that door open.

The lawyers' report refers to a series of actions linked to the specific activity of an investigation commission that has already completed its work, "so there would be no regulatory channel to articulate a request like the one analyzed now", although they point out the lawyers of the Chamber that "all this without prejudice to the possibility of going directly to the Public Prosecutor's Office, under the protection of the applicable procedural legislation".

From the parliamentary group of the PSOE, its spokesman Héctor Gómez has disassociated the new investigation commission on Operation Catalunya from said legal report and has reiterated that "in a democratic country we cannot allow this type of situation to happen as if nothing had happened" .

"It's very serious and we have the obligation to focus on something if we don't want it to happen again," Gómez stressed, since in the recordings that "El País" revealed on June 22, the former Interior Minister confirmed that met with Commissioner José Manuel Villareojo to plan complaints against the then president of Catalonia, Artur Mas, and his predecessor, Jordi Pujol, and told them: "I will deny, even under torture, that this meeting has ever taken place."

The spokesperson for the PP in Congress, Cuca Gamarra, has pointed out that this new commission "is a sign of the PSOE's desperation, which thus responds to electoral setbacks", and has stressed that "it would be better for it to focus its efforts on finding help the Spaniards to get out of this very serious economic crisis, and not to commissions that what they seek is to persecute the PP".

On June 13, an Andorran judge notified former Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy and former Interior Minister Jorge Fernández Díaz, among other members of his Executive, that he is investigating them as a result of a lawsuit for alleged pressure on the Banca Privada d 'Andorra (BPA) to obtain information from Catalan politicians during the procés.

The investigation stems from a complaint, admitted for processing in 2020, filed by the Institut de Drets Humans d'Andorra, Drets and the former president of BPA, Higini Cierco.

The Catalan and Basque independence parties proposed this commission to study the possible interference in the sovereignty of the Principality of Andorra by the political leaders investigated by the Andorran justice system, in particular the former President of the Government Mariano Rajoy, the former Minister of the Interior Jorge Fernández Díaz, the former Minister of the Treasury Cristóbal Montoro, the former Secretary of State for Security Francisco Martínez and the former Director General of the Police Ignacio Cosidó.