The magistrate wants to clarify who leaked Switzerland’s response about Marta Rovira
Judge Manuel García-Castellón has received a new refusal from the Prosecutor’s Office. The public ministry does not consider it competent to investigate in a secret piece the possible leaks in the cause of Democratic Tsunami, and for this reason it has requested the National Court to transfer it to the courts of inquiry in Madrid. García-Castellón opened last week a separate piece within the case, of a reserved nature, to try to find out if there was an alleged crime of disclosure of secrets due to the leakage of Switzerland’s response to the rogatory commission to locate Marta Rovira, general secretary of Esquerra Republicana Catalunya (ERC). However, the Prosecutor’s Office does not believe that the judge has the powers to carry out this investigation.
The judge orders the Civil Guard to investigate the leaks
After it became known that Switzerland had refused to cooperate in the prosecution of García-Castellón in the Tsunami case, the judge ordered the Civil Guard to investigate whether an alleged crime of disclosure of secrets had been committed by “authorities or officials who could have been made aware of the reply by the Swiss authorities”. The magistrate’s decision contrasts with the view of the Prosecutor’s Office, which has appealed to the Criminal Chamber of the National Court considering that García-Castellón does not have the powers to carry out this investigation, according to EFE reports.
The Prosecutor’s Office does not see any connection between the Tsunami crimes and the disclosure of secrets
For its part, the Prosecutor’s Office argues that there is no connection between the crimes being investigated in the Tsunami case, which would have taken place in 2019, and the alleged disclosure of secrets that would have taken place last week . The prosecutor does not believe that these possible leaks seek impunity or favor them in any way.
A case similar to that of the CDR
causeA similar case occurred in the case concerning a part of the Defense Committees of the Republic (CDR). On that occasion, it was the defense who asked to also investigate possible leaks of the case and the Prosecutor’s Office asked the judge to refer it to the Madrid courts in Plaça de Castella, as they were the competent ones. On this occasion, the defense asked García-Castellón, also in charge of this investigation, to open a separate piece to investigate it, but the magistrate followed the prosecutor’s criteria at that time. All this ended up being archived.
Switzerland’s answer
Switzerland’s response to Judge García-Castellón’s rogatory commission, which was made public last week, was a hard setback for the magistrate. Specifically, the Federal Office of Justice, dependent on the Swiss Ministry of Justice, stopped the rogatory commission sent last November by García-Castellón, in which he asked to facilitate the location of Marta Rovira. The Swiss authorities warn in their response of the possible “political character” of the Tsunami investigation, which is why their law prevents them from collaborating with other states, and remind the judge that they already told him this in 2020.< /P>