Tsunami Democràtic protesters collapse the T-1 of the Barcelona airport, in October 2019.albert garcia
The National Intelligence Center (CNI) asked to seize the cell phone of the president of the Generalitat, Pere Aragonès, because that phone, which was not the official one with which he had institutional contacts, had been used by a supposed intermediary of the CDRs (Comités of Defense of the Republic), the shock force of the independence movement, according to sources who have had access to the judicial resolution that authorized the listening.
Although Citizen Lab, the group of experts from the University of Toronto (Canada) that uncovered the
Pegasus case,
has not specified the date on which the Aragonès mobile was infected, the intervention occurred in the fall of 2019, when Catalonia was the scene of violent disturbances in protest against the ruling of the
procés
, including the attempted occupation of El Prat airport (Barcelona).
At that time, Aragonès was already the coordinator of the Esquerra Republicana de Catalunya (ERC), although he was still only vice president of the Generalitat.
More information
The independence movement tracks among its ranks if there are more cases of espionage with Pegasus before 1-O
During the almost four hours that the ex-director of the CNI appeared before the Congressional Secrets Commission on May 5, Paz Esteban did not admit at any time that the center he directed had the Pegasus spy program, manufactured by the Israeli company NSO Group.
She also did not mention Aragonès or explain the reasons why he had been spied on, and limited herself to presenting in a generic way the activities carried out by the secret service, always within the framework of legality, she assured.
However, each of the 10 parliamentarians who are part of the commission had a folder in their name with the judicial decisions that authorized the 18 telephone interventions -less than a third of the 65 denounced by Citizen Lab- recognized as their own by the secret Service.
Several of the attendees have acknowledged
a posteriori
that they were surprised by the volume of documentation provided by the director of the CNI, since they did not know what information was going to be provided or the method to do so.
The session was interrupted for a little less than 15 minutes so that they could examine the 18 judicial decisions, some six to seven pages each, depending on whether it was a new telephone intervention or an extension for another three months of the authorization initial, as was the case in several cases.
Lawyers Antoni Abat, Andreu Van den Eynde, Benet Salellas and Gonzalo Boye, at a press conference on espionage, on the 24th. DAVID ZORRAKINO - EUROPA PRESS (Europa Press)
The deputies took notes by hand, since they were not allowed to access the room where the meeting was held with mobile phones or equipment to capture sound or image.
Not even the spokesman for United We Can, Pablo Echenique, to whom the President of the Cortes, Meritxell Batet, granted a waiver to go with an electronic tablet that would allow her to write, since her physical condition prevents her from doing it manually.
In the judicial resolution that authorized the intervention of the Aragonès cell phone, signed by the magistrate of the Third Chamber of the Supreme Court that controls the activities of the CNI, there were names deleted, according to those who had access to the document, and there were also cross-outs on fragments of dialogue that They seemed to correspond to a wiretap.
One of the deputies who had the document in his hands assures that it referred, generically, to "contacts [of Aragonès] with the CDR".
Democratic Tsunami
According to some sources, the alleged intermediary who would have led to the current president's phone would be Benet Salellas, deputy in the Catalan Parliament for the CUP (2015-2017) and defender of Jordi Cuixart, president of Òmnium Cultural, in the
procés
trial .
He has also been a lawyer, among many others, for the businessman Oriol Soler, one of the supposed founders of Tsunami Democràtic, the platform that promoted the mobilizations of the fall of 2019, or for Tamara Carrasco, a CDR activist accused of terrorism and finally acquitted. .
Salellas' name does not appear in the document on Aragonès, according to those who have had access to the text, but it does appear in one of the other 17 judicial resolutions that the director of the CNI took to Congress, despite the fact that it is not on the list of 65 allegedly spied on by Citizen Lab. Salellas has assured EL PAÍS that he has had the same telephone number for years and that he has not coincided or maintained contact with Aragonès since, in October 2017, the Government of Mariano Rajoy intervened in the Catalan autonomy in application of article 155 of the Constitution.
The format of the appearance of the director of the CNI before the Official Secrets Commission did not facilitate the clarification of this or many other extremes.
After an initial presentation by Esteban, the 10 deputies from as many parliamentary groups intervened one by one.
Then, the person appearing answered and they were still entitled to a last reply of just over a minute, before the director of the CNI closed the session.
It was in this last section where, according to some present, there was a moment of tension when the representative of JuntsxCat, Míriam Nogueras, asked Esteban directly the reasons why she had been spied on.
Several spokesmen assure, however, that neither Nogueras nor Albert Botran, the CUP spokesman, who was also present at the commission,
ERC has requested that the judicial decisions that explain why the 18 independence supporters were spied on be declassified and made public.
The Government claims to be willing to do so, but only if requested by a judge.
From the seizure of the airport to the battle of Urquinaona
Alfonso L. Congostrina (Barcelona)
Catalonia experienced a wave of violent protests in October 2019 when the Supreme Court published the conviction of 12 of the pro-independence leaders
(
those who had not fled from Spain).
Between October 14 and 20, supposedly anonymous groups such as Tsunami Democràtic and the Committees for the Defense of the Republic (CDR), along with pro-independence parties and entities, took to the streets and confronted the police, literally filling the streets with stones. and you call the center of Barcelona.
On October 14, minutes after the sentence was published, thousands of people blocked several roads and walked to the Barcelona-El Prat airport, collapsing it and forcing the cancellation of 108 flights.
Several train tracks were cut and there was a real pitched battle between protesters and the National Police and Mossos that resulted in several injuries.
On Tuesday the 15th it was the turn of the Government Delegation in Catalonia.
Around her, several protesters built barricades with burning containers and clashed with the police.
The next day the marches began —from Girona, Vic, Tarragona, Tàrrega and Berga— of thousands of people who began a path on foot towards Barcelona with the idea that on Friday the 18th the city would be paralyzed with a general strike.
That day, in the Catalan capital, the protest focused on the Ministry of the Interior, where fire, stones and police charges returned.
On Thursday the 17th, a Spanishist extreme right-wing group summoned its militants to confront the CDR.
Again, the night ended with riots and clashes.
The most intense day was Friday the 18th. The general strike paralyzed the cities and the roads were cut off, while dozens of highly prepared groups began what ended up being baptized as the Battle of Urquinaona.
Via Laietana and Plaza de Urquinaona were left unrecognizable after protesters lifted sidewalks and threw cobblestones at police, who responded with rubber bullets.
For the first time in the history of the Mossos, the regional police launched the tank that launches pressurized water to dissuade the protesters.
After the battle of Urquinaona, the disturbances began to decrease in intensity.
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