The National Police arrested four independence supporters last Saturday accused of wanting to boycott the Vuelta a España as it passed through Catalonia. According to a press release issued yesterday, those arrested intended to pour 400 liters of oil on the asphalt as the large group passed during the first stage between the towns of Súria and Arinsal. In some images provided by the Police itself, it can be seen how they had hidden two drums in a wooded area near a bridge on the C-55 road to which a hose had been connected with which they intended to pour the liquid through which the runners were moving. The entire mechanism was covered with branches and vegetation.
The agents caught the detainees in a wooded area at the moment when they were preparing to activate the mechanism that would pour "hundreds of liters" into the path of the cycling lap, according to the statement. The installation had an "electrovalve and a timer", according to the researchers. Those arrested adopted "strong security measures to avoid detection and surveillance". At the time of their arrests, none of them had their mobile phones on them and they had used secondary roads to get to the point where they had installed the device.
The detainees were brought before the Solsona police court yesterday and were released. The crimes of belonging to a criminal group, public disorder, against road safety and against the environment are attributed to them. In Saturday's police operation, searches were also carried out at the homes of the suspects in several locations in the Osona region. The agents took away computers and computer equipment that will be analyzed by investigators.
Alerta Solidària, an organization of the pro-independence left that is responsible for the defense of the detainees, denounced yesterday that the Police had disseminated the images of the drums when the case is under summary secrecy and after access to the 'file to the defense lawyers. On Saturday, after the arrests, spokespeople for the CDR called the "Spanish Tour" cycling round a "repressive state" and described the operation as "preventive arrests typical of the Franco regime to intimidate independence as it was done six years ago years in Operation Judas". ERC and Junts also expressed themselves in this regard. Oriol Junqueras and Marta Rovira asked for the release of the detainees criticizing the Police for having acted "against fundamental freedoms and human rights". And the president and general secretary of Junts, Laura Borràs and Jordi Turull, described the police operation as "preventive arrests typical of authoritarian and outdated regimes".
