Observers warn Catalan referendum case could be a "political trial" with "orchestrated" witnesses

They believe that Lieutenant Colonel Daniel Baena's testimony "revealed" the investigation of a political movement

Mariona Ferrer I Fornells
3 min
Els observadors alerten de testimonis “orquestrats” al judici

MadridLast week was a turning point in the trial of the Catalan independence process, according to international observers. If up to now they had agreed on the fact that Justice Manuel Marchena, the presiding judge, has not allowed footage to be shown for the purpose of countering the Spanish security forces' narrative, now International Trial Watch (ITW) has gone one step further and warned that the Catalan referendum case could be a "political trial" with testimonies of "orchestrated and prepared witnesses". Their latest weekly analysis highlights three aspects.

First, that Justice Marchena has emphasized over and over again that the court will not take into account the witness statements to formulate the verdict, but only what is said in court. Where he insisted most on this issue was in relation to the testimony by the head of the judicial police in Catalonia, Lieutenant Colonel of the Guardia Civil Daniel Baena, who wrote all the reports about the independence bid in more than one investigation. The observers have warned that it is "key" to be able to counter the reports in court and "much more so in this case, in which the investigative phase (and the court’s decision to hold the defendants in jail) have been largely based on these reports."

Second, Baena's testimony, according to the observers, "revealed" that the purpose of the investigation, initiated in 2015, "was not concrete facts, but a political movement”. In their view, this was a “prospective investigation” which might prove two points: on the one hand, "that it could be a political trial that is not possible within the framework of the Spanish criminal law"; and, on the other hand, "if it is shown that Baena did not act with absolute neutrality and impartiality, as required by law, the lack of credibility of the same witness would also be evident." In this regard, they point to the fact that they were not allowed to prove in court that the Tácito Twitter account belonged to Baena, as the court did not allow an expert witness testimony. Lt. Col. Baena denied that it was his. If Marchena had allowed the defense to produce evidence in court, it might have been possible to prove that he lied.

For the third and last point, observers pointed out that in testimony by police witnesses, the same concepts and descriptions of events keep cropping up. They have spoken of the “verbal abuse” against Guardia Civil officers and Spanish police, or of the 20-S demonstrations, with words such as "hate", "tumult", "mob", “powder keg", "insurrection", and "fear." According to ITW, despite being "subjective" assessments that "in no case" connect the defendants to the events, these very similar expressions "could indicate that statements have been orchestrated and prepared beforehand”. This could be evidence that "the trial being broadcast live is contaminating the witnesses”.

By law witnesses may not communicate with each other nor watch the testimony given by their peers. But in spite of this, all the police officers are testifying in a very detailed way, using nearly the same concepts. Whether it is about demonstrations by millions of people or ten, different officers always speak of “the mob” to refer to the pro-independence protesters, or constantly point to the faces of "hate" and say it was an attempted “assault”, or a “tumult”.

Three observers from the Arab world

Last week's observation team was the first to come from the Arab world and included two women and one man: Palestinian Sahar Francis, a lawyer and representative of Addameer, a human rights organization and supporter of Palestinian prisoners; Morocco’s Khadija Ryadi, the first female president of the Moroccan Association for Human Rights (AMDH) and the UN human rights special prize winner in 2013; and Tunisia’s Bechir Labidi, a political prisoner in Tunisia under the regime of Ben Ali and leader of the Tunisian League for Human Rights (LTDH), winner of the Nobel Peace Prize in 2015 for his work in favor of the democratization of Tunisia. All of them have followed the cross-examinations in the Supreme Court from an ITW office next to the court house for simultaneous translation, and one day they went into the courtroom.

stats