Day 6: "Absolute normality" on September 20, 2017 and no public money was used for the vote, say defendants
(23/02/2019) Schools decided to self-regulate, says the former chairman of the ANC; former regional business minister denies public money used.
(Original published: 23/02/2019)
On the sixth day, the only former regional government minister who resigned before the declaration of independence on October 27, 2017, Santiago Vila, testified, along with the first defendant who was not a regional minister, former Catalan National Assembly (ANC) chairman Jordi Sánchez.
“The parliament had begun with lots of pressure from citizens and parties for the government to take a unilateral decision”, said Mr. Vila: “The trick or decision was [...] that the government was going to work towards getting a referendum […] it was going to try to agree on some kind of consultation”.
“After the ball had been passed…” perhaps they would have decided otherwise, he said, describing the October 1 vote as just “a big political demonstration”.
“There was a legitimate radical pro-independence discourse” but he could not say “why every citizen decided to take part”.
He denied, as did all the other defendants, that public money had been spent on the vote and explained that with the advertising campaign Civisme, with the train track adverts, “they have taken advantage of the margin they have for free advertising” on TV3, the regional television channel controlled by the Catalan government.
“I insist […] there would be no chance of carrying out any expenditure that was not seen by everyone”. He referred to the fact that, in any case, the expenses incurred were borne by a “pro-Catalan patron”.
Nor did he know anything about how the ballot boxes or ballot papers made it to the polling stations, “I suppose by way of civil initiative”, “the causes are so varied…”.
He explained he had conducted “dialogue” with the central government, “it would be excessive to call it negotiation but certainly an approach”, at the behest of Mr. Puigdemont, to “avoid things getting out of hand, or ending badly”, and that he thought there was an agreement to hold early elections, “but on the evening of October 25, everything broke down”.
“We were sorcerer's apprentices under social media pressure.”
He resigned on the night of October 26, hours before the declaration of independence.
“Looking back, perhaps we should have managed this conflict differently and avoided it being here court”, he said.
Jordi Sánchez, the former chairman of the Catalan National Assembly (ANC) started by saying “I consider myself a political prisoner and this is a political trial” and “all of the accusations are false”.
He went on to lecture the Supreme Court judges on “the logic of the rule of law”.
The ANC, he testified, had always rallied “with absolute respect for civic norms” and in an “absolutely peaceful” manner.
On September 20, 2017, one of the key events of the trial, “events accumulated almost simultaneously in the media, on social media and with messages from some people”. He denied he had summoned the crowd. He had learnt about it from “media stories” and some messages.
He did not remember if he had received a message or a call from former the secretary general of Esquerra (ERC), Marta Rovira, first thing in the morning to warn him, “I spoke to Marta Rovira three or four times throughout the day”.
He admitted he had written his own tweets that morning.
“When I arrived at the regional government building, there were hundreds of people who were absolutely normal, and lots of journalists.”
He also spoke “several” times with the former Catalan Police chief, Josep Lluis Trapero, that day in order to manage a corridor between the crowd, when a Civil Guard lieutenant told him that there were long weapons in the vehicles, “that made me very tense…”, and finally to manage the withdrawal of the judicial committee.
The ANC had a crowd control service staffed by volunteers, “with moral authority” and dressed in green bibs to manage the entrance to the building. Mr. Sánchez stressed “the absolutely normal atmosphere inside the building”.
He stated he did not know about the damage to the vehicles of the Guardia Civil until 6 p.m or 7 p.m. on the 20th, and that “we made it as easy as possible to guarantee” those arrested could be present at the search of their offices: “the work of the judicial committee was not being hindered”.
He denied the physical integrity of the officers was at risk: “What I had been asked for, a corridor, was formed and at their full disposal”, or that his responsibility that day had gone beyond the corridor at the door: “I absolutely deny that, I do not take responsibilit the security of anything”.
He also stated the Deputy First Minister, Oriol Junqeras, had come to the regional government building to “find out if the corridor was open and if he could come in”.
To a question from the Attorney General's lawyer, he admitted he had not received any calls from any member of the regional government to tell the protesters to go home that day.
If the Civil Guard was unable to leave the building until seven the following morning, it was because cranes had not arrived to remove the damaged vehicles, he said.
“The story of a permanent attempt to attack [the building] is radically false.”
Asked if the long weapons had remained inside the vehicles, he replied “I suppose so”.
“Or were they not there?”, the prosecutor insisted. “I don't understand the question, what do you mean were they not there?”, the defendant replied: “No Assembly volunteer opened the door of any vehicle”.
Nor did they look after ballot boxes for 1 October, according to Mr. Sánchez's version, although he admitted the ANC had encouraged citizens to print ballot papers at home.
The prosecutor asked him if he knew a man named Xabi Strubell and Mr. Sanchez denied it, “I don't know who he is”. The prosecutor displayed an e-mail from Mr. Strubell and Mr. Sanchez replied “this is the first time I have seen that e-mail”.
On the weekend of October 1, schools “decided to self-regulate”.
“The right to non-violent resistance is a legitimate act of protest. It must not lead to violence from the police”.
Like all the other defendants who have testified in the first two weeks of the trial, he denied any knowledge of the strategic document known as Enfocats, “an apocryphal, generic document” written by someone “who has no knowledge of reality”.
Mr. Sánchez's lawyer showed the court several images of the exterior and interior of the building on September 20, in which the volunteers, some of them elderly, could be seen with their green bibs by the door, or the defendant could be seen talking to the Civil Guard lieutenant.
Like the previous defendants, neither Mr. Vila nor Mr. Sánchez accepted questions from Vox, the private prosecution.
The trial continues next Tuesday, February 26, with testimony from Carme Forcadell, the former Speaker of the Catalan Parliament, and Jordi Cuixart, the chairman of Omnium Cultural.