The former deputy of Junts per Catalunya Eduard Pujol, on a street in Barcelona. Joan Sanchez (EL PAÍS)
Eduard Pujol has won a new fight in the battle he is waging to restore his honor and turn the page on one of the darkest episodes of his life. A Barcelona judge has left one of the two women who denounced this former Junts per Catalunya deputy in the Catalan Parliament for alleged sexual harassment. The women reported the facts to the party, but never went to the police or to justice. Pujol, who was forced to resign, counterattacked some time later and sued for libel and slander.
The investigations against the two women, who had maintained a romantic relationship with Pujol, are directed by two judges from Barcelona. One of them has come to an end. In an order accessed by EL PAÍS, the judge concludes that ER "took advantage of Pujol's status as deputy" to subject him to "pressure, intimidation and defamation actions." E. ended up "falsely accusing him of acts of aggression" that earned Pujol public ridicule and his political career. Since then he has kept a low profile, focused on the courts.
In August 2018, coinciding with their separation process, Pujol began a relationship through Instagram with E. They had sporadic meetings until the deputy decided to end the relationship. Shortly after, the woman began to harass him with messages on WhatsApp and on social networks "so that Eduard would not decide to end the romantic relationship between them," adds the head of Barcelona's 29th investigating court, Santiago García. Throughout 2019, he sent him some 3,400 messages – which Pujol provided to the judge – in which he threatened to spread intimate photographs. “Now I will hang a photo made by me with your elements”, “today the one who will not sleep will be you”, “are you afraid?, you will have a busy day”. In this way, the judge concludes, "he achieved his purpose of new encounters."
Over time, E. —whose summons has been an odyssey for the court, where he has taken advantage of his right not to testify— also published messages on social networks in which he presented himself as "Eduard's victim, falsely accusing him of acts of aggression”. In October 2020, he “addressed” Junts per Catalunya and claimed that he had been sexually harassed.
That day, E. brought the facts to the attention of the party together with NL, a councilor from Junts in the Maresme region with whom Pujol had started another relationship.
Both said they had been victims of sexual harassment.
Despite denying the facts, Pujol immediately resigned from his position as parliamentary spokesman and from his status as deputy.
But since the women did not make any complaint in the following months, the independence party reconsidered its position.
In June 2021, Junts decided to return Pujol's membership card and apologized.
The case against NL, also investigated for libel and slander, is still open.