A letter from the Generalitat of Catalonia chaired by Salvador Illa definitively saves the independence leaders from the process of returning five embezzled millions and directs the Court of Accounts to amnesty them for their embezzlement.
The letter, to which EL MUNDO has had access, has been sent by the General Attorney's Office of the Generalitat of Catalonia so that the Court of Auditors can finally file the case opened against Carles Puigdemont, Oriol Junqueras and around thirty independentists for having embezzled up to five million in the process, including the illegal 2017 referendum.
The counselor of the Court of Accounts investigating the case, Elena Hernáez, opened at the end of July a last avenue to avoid the amnesty after the support of the Court of Justice of the European Union for the government law. The way was to give the parties a period of time to clarify whether the embezzled money affected European funds, which is the only way to not apply the amnesty. Catalan Civil Society has presented a document - to which this newspaper has also had access - ensuring that the independence supporters cannot be granted amnesty without verifying whether any or all of the misappropriated items worth 4.97 million had European resources and stresses that the intricate accounting of the Catalan Generalitat, especially in the expenses incurred in the foreign promotion of the process, prevents the case from being archived for now without opening new proceedings.
However, the Generalitat of Catalonia has sent a letter to the contrary, which is key to closing the case, since it is the only Administration officially harmed by the independence embezzlement and the Government of Illa definitively renounces recovering the money. "Precisely due to its status as an allegedly harmed public sector, the Generalitat of Catalonia expressly expresses its agreement with the application of Organic Law 1/2024, of June 1 [that of Amnesty], to this procedure and with the consequent extinction of accounting liability that could arise from the events that are the subject of it."
The lawyer for the Catalan Civil Society, Juan Chapapría, has asked the Court of Auditors, on the contrary, that the Catalan Generalitat provide "the accounting and budgetary documentation indicated with respect to each of the items and allow its source of financing to be determined." It motivates this request for action because, "in the opinion of this party, these limitations prevent drawing, from the mere absence in an entry, bank statement or specific document of an express reference to European funds, the conclusion that the financing was exclusively regional."
The Government did not dare to apply the amnesty also to embezzlement of European funds and limits it to the Spanish treasury to avoid problems with Brussels, but the civil association that has appeared as an accusation in the Court of Accounts - the Prosecutor's Office has already withdrawn and even before that the State Attorney's Office - still sees room to prove a link between the regional or national public money with the European money that the State and the Generalitat itself receive recurrently.
However, technicians from the Court of Auditors consulted find it very difficult to keep the case alive, despite the fact that the auditing body was the one that first raised a preliminary ruling to the Court of Justice of the EU seeking help. His ruling supporting the amnesty if it does not affect European money and Illa's resignation from helping along those lines close the last possible window.
The attorney general of the Generalitat of Catalonia expressly requests the Court of Auditors - see attached document - to "declare the accounting liability that could arise from the facts subject to prosecution to be extinguished."
Also that "all the defendants are absolved of accounting responsibility" and, therefore, they do not have to return the money. And finally, that "the immediate lifting of all precautionary measures adopted be ordered." This is of particular interest to the Generalitat, because, as he recalls in his writing, Salvador Illa's predecessor, Pere Aragonès, ordered the independence leaders themselves accused of embezzling money from the Generalitat to be guaranteed with more than nine million euros, so that assets from Carles Puigdemont or Oriol Junqueras would not have to be preventively seized.
Remember that "the alleged accounting liability was considered provisionally guaranteed by orders of February 26, 2020, in the amount of 4,146,274.97 euros (in relation to the expenses of the referendum of October 1, 2017), and of May 4, 2022, in the amount of 5,422,411.10 euros (in relation to the expenses of the so-called action abroad during the years 2011 to 2017, in the latter case through guarantees granted by the Institut Català de Finances).
The defense of the independentistas also demands that the Court of Accounts definitively close the case.
