The so-called Catalonia Operation – the alleged maneuvers of police sectors to blow up Operations The pro-independence party – it did not take two hours for him to appear at the trial of the Pujol clan. family Former President During the first session of the hearing into the origin of his hidden wealth, Jordi Pujol wanted to highlight the extent to which the intervention of state sewers could have contaminated the case. Lawyers for Josep Pujol and Oriol Pujol, two of the president’s seven children (all indicted), have asked that much of the operation be canceled because some evidence was obtained “illegally.” They assert that everything is tainted by the “origin”, and even the confession of the former regional leader, in July 2014, was “free and voluntary”: according to the defence, he was only trying to circumvent the data that had begun to spread about the family’s bank accounts in Andorra and which had been obtained by pressure and blackmail.
The so-called occurrence National Police In it Pujol case It is, at this point, beyond a reasonable doubt. With the conviction (which turned out to be wrong) that the termination of A Fathers of the country Of the Catalans will strike Operationsmany police officers went for the family’s jugular under Jorge Fernández Díaz (PP) as Minister of the Interior. Along the way they crossed some red lines. Some of his maneuvers have even already been proven correct in a final court ruling – the Supreme Court confirmed in the same year 2025 the one-year prison sentence of Eugenio Pino, head of the National Police under Mariano Rajoy, for “illegally” removing data from Jordi Pujol Verosola and trying to insert it into this summary that is now being judged in court.
The problem for the Pujol family is that they have a secret to hide: a million-dollar fortune in Andorra that remained a mystery to the treasury (and citizens) for more than three decades, and which they organized only after the newspaper came out. the world Footage of those depositions was published on July 7, 2014. “Everything is summed up in this photo,” said Jaime Campaner, Josep Pujol Versola’s lawyer, as he held up the cover of the newspaper that day.
Those financial statements were forced Former PresidentThe lawyer insisted on issuing the statement in which he stated that his father, Florence Pujol, left some money to his family when he died in 1980 in case his political career went in the wrong direction. The court case was officially opened after the confession, but the confession (“vague, general, inaccurate”) was “just a pretext”: the origin was the bank data, obtained “illegally,” through the pressure exerted by the state sewers on those in charge of the private banking of Andorra (BPA), as said publicly by retired commissioner José Manuel Velario, among others. “It is the original sin,” and therefore the mandate of the Pyrenees and all that was subsequently obtained is invalid, as this lawyer said at the first session of the trial.
Watch Uncomfortable
The first campaign against the Pujol family had already begun much earlier, in December 2012, with the case of a woman. Victoria Alvarez, who was the lover of the first-born Jordi Pujol Verosola, said that during her relationship with him she saw him carrying backpacks full of 500 euro banknotes between Catalonia and Andorra. directions Pujol case It’s been a long time, and a lot of things have happened (like ups and downs Operations) That time allowed us to discover that Alvarez was not an impartial witness: she was supposedly receiving a monthly salary from funds allocated to the state. His statements led to investigations in the National Court that ended in understanding the case opened by Pujol’s confession. Now she is an uncomfortable witness: Neither the district attorney’s office nor the Pujols’ defense called her to testify, although the eldest son’s ex-wife did.
Lawyer Oriol Pujol, the only one of the children who followed his father’s political career until his conviction for corruption (in ITV caseHe highlighted this “illegitimate start” of the operation, which was born “by the will of some pseudo police officers and part of the state apparatus to influence what was happening in Catalonia.” “It is clear that (Victoria Alvarez) is not making (the statement) because she wants to,” said lawyer Francisque Sanchez, who requested the inclusion of new evidence.
In addition to the pressure on the BPA and Victoria Alvarez statement, the occurrence National Police It depends on a third leg: the theft of Jordi Pujol Verosola’s personal and financial data by unknown persons who ended up in the hands of the police. Last February, the Supreme Court upheld a one-year prison sentence for Eugenio Pino, who was deputy director of police for the People’s Party. Pino ordered that data to be recorded in a file Pendrive They were handed over to the unit that was investigating the family.
But, no matter how long it exists, Operation Catalonia will not be able to save the Pujol family. As for the cancellations that were requested, according to sources in the case, they are inexperienced. First, because the court had previously upheld the investigating judge’s actions; Secondly, because the investigation reached the same results with different means of evidence. A prosecutor’s office that does not believe in reality dexa (Legacy) Grandfather, believes that the man who ruled the state between 1980 and 2003 exploited his position of power to enrich himself and his family through political corruption: granting public works in exchange for kickbacks.
Regardless of what the ruling says on this point, it was important for Pujol’s family that Operation Catalonia come to light at trial, because it provides them with an image closer to that of the victim than to that of the accused. This is also a trial by the story, by the truth that will be nailed down to the proven facts, a real obsession for Pujol, who, at 95, thinks more about the history books than the possibility of a prison sentence.