The ex-minister of the Interior, Miquel Buch, sits this Wednesday in the dock of the accused in the Court of Barcelona. The prosecution accuses him of having signed Puigdemont's bodyguard Lluís Escolà, the Mossos sergeant who helped the former president flee to Belgium, as an adviser. In its indictment, the public ministry considers that Buch allocated money from the Government to hire the mosso as trusted personnel so that it would actually continue to provide the protection service for the former president in Belgium despite the fact that he had already lost his status as an authority.
“The designation of Lluís Escolà for the position of adviser constituted an act of mere arbitrariness (...) that responded solely to the purpose of procuring from the Government and with public funds a permanent escort service to the rebel defendant, Carles Puigdemont ”, says the Prosecutor. For this reason, it considers that the actions of the former Interior Minister constitute a crime of embezzlement of public funds and another of prevarication and requests for him a sentence of six years in prison and twelve years of disqualification from holding public office. For the Mossos agent, he claims four and a half years in prison and ten years of disqualification.
The trial starts this Wednesday and will be held in two alternate weeks. On Friday Puigdemont will testify as a witness by videoconference from Waterloo and will start with the head of the escort area who will explain Escolà's conduct. The Prosecutor's Office maintains that the sergeant "organized a clandestine device that allowed him to accompany and escort Puigdemont to France, where he took a plane that took him to Belgium." In that operation, the sergeant did not inform his hierarchical superiors that the president had "hastily abandoned the territory."
The Internal Affairs Division of the Mossos, during the 155 stage, opened a file on the sergeant for a serious offense and he was sent to a Martorell police station that he did not even set foot on because he accumulated several medical leaves and vacation days. The Prosecutor's Office emphasizes that Escolà from October 2017 to July 2018 did not carry out a single day of active service and instead made numerous trips abroad to provide security work for Puigdemont. Then, with his signing by the Ministry of the Interior, there is no record that he went to work and accompanied the former president in Belgium and on his trips abroad.
On Thursday at the trial, former police director Andreu Joan Martínez, former secretary general Brauli Duart, his former chief of staff Pere Ferrer -current director of the Mossos- will testify. The defendants will be interrogated on July 13.
Last Thursday at the Premià, three hundred people from Junts surrounded Buch at a dinner attended by Jordi Pujol, Artur Mas and Xavier Trias, among others.
