The anti-corruption prosecutor Fernando Maldonado has opposed the Civil Guard investigating the assets of the current head of the office of former president Carles Puigdemont, Josep Maria Alay, and has filed an appeal with the Barcelona Court against the decision of the investigating judge Joaquin Aguirrewith whom he maintains an arduous legal dispute in the case of the alleged diversion of funds from the Barcelona Provincial Council and the presumed financing of the ‘procés’ and the ‘Voloh case’ about alleged corruption. The public accusation maintains that the investigations would be prospective, since, in their opinion, there are no indications against Alay to agree to that measure and allowing it would be an “extraordinarily dangerous precedent to authorize investigations submitted solely to the whim of whoever decides to investigate,” according to the text to the that EL PERIÓDICO has had access to.
On April 20, the magistrate ordered the Civil Guard to investigate the alay heritage in order to determine whether he was illicitly enriched, at the same time that he requested the Barcelona Provincial Council to send him the files of the trips made by him when he held the position of international relations commissioner (between 2015 and 2018, during the CiU era) of this provincial institution.
The suspicion
The judge argued that it had been established that another exalted official of the Diputación and, apparently, predecessor, Jordi Castells Massana (now in the Generalitat), could have perceived suspicious income and, therefore, the assets of the current head of the Puigdemont office had to be traced in case it happened or itself. The agents of the armed institute detected that the balance in their bank accounts It went from 216,634 to 502,332 euros between 2015 and 2017, in addition to the purchase of flats in cash without requesting a mortgage. Castells was arrested in May 2018 in the framework of the police operation.
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The prosecutor’s appeal states that the “only reason” offered by the judge to investigate Alay is the reference to Castells and the Civil Guard report that refers “exclusively” to this charge of the Provincial. In this same sense, the public accusation emphasizes that the judge’s affirmation that Castells could have illicitly enriched himself is “precipitated”, since the Civil Guard still has some proceedings pending and it will also “be necessary” for the investigated “reasonably explain the movements in their bank accounts”.
It reproaches, therefore, that “an alleged and unaccredited illicit enrichment“nor can it justify the investigation of Alay’s assets. The prosecutor Fernando Maldonado He has opposed on numerous occasions the decisions agreed by Judge Aguirre, although the Barcelona Court has not, for now, heeded his reasons.