Catalan government reports CNP

The Catalan government filed a complaint against the Spanish national police force (CNP in Spanish) yesterday for arresting 16 people (including two mayors) without a court order last week in Girona in relation to the occupation of the train tracks on October 1 2018.

Yesterday, at the Catalan parliament, Torra described last weeks’ police operation culminating in sixteen arrests as a “raid”. The president said that the police action involved “a violation of the fundamental right to freedom”, and had no “legal authorization”, and did not comply with “the requirements of the law of criminal procedure to proceed to arrest”. The complaint was filed yesterday evening with the judge on duty in Girona.

The judge on duty on 1 October last year received a report from the Catalan police force relating the events that took place during the occupation of the train tracks. No-one was identified in this report, however, and the judge therefore provisionally dismissed the case. The CNP, working in parallel, decided that the occupation was a crime and that, as a police force, it had the power to investigate. Thus, it was the national police force who decided to investigate the high speed train line blockade and the people who had participated in it; and agents asked Adif (the train company) for details of the protest, including the effects of the protest on the company.

The High Court of Justice of Catalonia confirmed, during the course of the police operation on January 16, that the arrests were “police arrests” because they did not respond to court orders. Now, as a result of the national police’s action, the case has been reopened, and those being investigated have been summoned to make statements at the beginning of March.