The judge of Barcelona Joaquin Aguirre reproaches in a harsh car, to which EL PERIÓDICO has had access, that the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office hamper the investigation against Josep Lluis Alayhead of the office of the ‘expresident’ Carles Puigdemont. In this resolution, it agrees to “expand the exposure of evidence of criminality & rdquor; against Alay and offers him the possibility of appearing as a defendant in the case for the alleged diversion of funds, through grants from the Barcelona Provincial Council, where he held a position. Alay also appears in the ‘Voloh operation’, in which he was arrested, on alleged financing of the ‘procés’.
Prosecutor Fernando Maldonado appealed a few days ago to the Court of Barcelona the judge’s decision to order the Civil Guard to trace Alay’s assets, having been the successor in the Barcelona Provincial Council of Jordi Castells, current deputy director general of Local Cooperation of the Generalitat, from whom the Civil Guard found suspicious income and an increase in his assets. The public ministry maintains that these investigations are prospective, since, to their knowledge, there are no indications against the head of Puigdemont’s office.
Given the initiative of the prosecutor, the judge has issued a new order in which he details the alleged evidence that exists against Alay, while qualifying the “maneuver of the anti-corruption prosecutor” of “obstative, instead of adjuvant, to the investigation of the cause”, since “it only delays” the process. The robed man reproaches him that “he could have completed the favorable argumentation to the patrimonial investigation with other indications that appear in the case and that the prosecutor omits”.
In this sense, the judge recalls that the prosecutor has requested the file of pieces on the alleged illicit subsidies“aligned himself” with the resources of the defenses” opposing the sending of part of the Democratic Tsunami to the National High Court and has filed several appeals against his decisions. “Faced with these conducts contrary to the criteria of the investigating judge (which time has shown to be erroneous), the anti-corruption prosecutor has only requested the practice of a few statements, not too relevant,” he underlines.
The suspicions
The order emphasizes that “there is no prospective investigation“regarding Alay. The judge adds that the Barcelona Provincial Council has presented a report with the trips made by him when he worked for the institution, from which “it turns out that there could be indications of the commission of a embezzlement crime” in two of those trips (Copenhagen and China), in which he received the amount of the trips in advance and then had to return it when he was claimed “for not being related to his work”.
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The magistrate also attributes to Alay the hiring of a external NGO of the Diputación de Barcelona “to conclude some files” that the civil servants had “observed as impossible to justify”.
The judge maintains that, given the contacts found on Alay’s phone, it is appropriate to “verify whether his mission “to maintain contact with politicians” from Russia and “with members of the secret service” of that country “began” when he was appointed head of the Puigdemont office or started before, when he worked in the Provincial Council. “This magistrate does not act on a whim, as the prosecutor asserts”, but rather “is always based on the evidence contained in the case”, concludes Aguirre.