García-Castellón agrees to investigate whether Russian spies visited Barcelona

The judge of the National Court Manuel García-Castellón, who is investigating the Democratic Tsunami case, has requested the Police to investigate whether "Russian spies who are experts in sabotage and murder" visited Barcelona between 2014 and 2019, during the peak years of the process, and thus opens the door, as his colleague from Barcelona Joaquín Aguirre did at the end of January, to explore a possible charge of treason against those investigated in the case.

Oliver Thansan
Oliver Thansan
05 March 2024 Tuesday 10:18
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García-Castellón agrees to investigate whether Russian spies visited Barcelona

The judge of the National Court Manuel García-Castellón, who is investigating the Democratic Tsunami case, has requested the Police to investigate whether "Russian spies who are experts in sabotage and murder" visited Barcelona between 2014 and 2019, during the peak years of the process, and thus opens the door, as his colleague from Barcelona Joaquín Aguirre did at the end of January, to explore a possible charge of treason against those investigated in the case. Another crime that, along with terrorism, is excluded from the Amnesty bill that is being processed in Congress. High treason involves colluding with a foreign power to harm Spain.

In a provision to which La Vanguardia had access yesterday, the magistrate agrees to accede to the request to open this line of investigation that was made to him by two policemen injured in the protests that took place in October 2019 in Catalonia, many of which led by Democratic Tsunami, in response to the judgment of the process.

The judge asks the General Information Office of the National Police "to report on the extremes claimed" by these agents, who asked to know if Russian spies had gone to Barcelona between 2014 and 2019, as indicated by various media . The two police officers, represented by the Fuster-Fabra office, included in their request journalistic information about the presence in Barcelona of at least seven agents from the Main Directorate of the General Staff of the Armed Forces (GRU), the department of Russian intelligence, from 2014 to 2019, years in which the 1-O referendum and the unilateral declaration of independence took place. "Having not found in the procedure any police report on the investigation carried out regarding the alleged covert operations of the members of Unit 29155 of the Moscow military intelligence service (GRU)", this accusation asked to claim this data to the Police

García-Castellón remains at the head of the case in relation to all those investigated - including ERC general secretary Marta Rovira -, but not in relation to former Catalan president Carles Puigdemont and republican deputy Ruben Wagensberg, against the which the Supreme Court agreed to open a criminal case for terrorism last week due to their condition as abattoirs.

The alleged collaboration of Russia with those responsible for the process is already being investigated by the head of the 1st District Court of Barcelona, ​​Joaquín Aguirre, in the Voloh case. In one of his last interviews, for which he extended the investigation, Aguirre explained that Puigdemont and members of his entourage maintained "close personal relationships" with far-right German and Italian politicians and with Russia, which was ready to support " economically and militarily" to the independence of Catalonia.