The Superior Prosecutor’s Office of Catalonia has closed the investigation opened in January to determine whether members of the police, under the PP government, had conducted surveillance on former chief prosecutor of Catalonia Martín Rodríguez Sol without judicial authorization to discredit him for his alleged ties to the independence movement. The public prosecutor’s office found no evidence that Rodríguez Sol was under surveillance, according to a press release. This was the first investigation opened by the Prosecutor’s Office into the so-called ‘Operation Catalonia’, the alleged maneuvers against the independence movement by police groups allegedly directed by the Ministry of the Interior during the government of Mariano Rajoy.
The Public Prosecutor’s Office became aware in January of reports suggesting that there was a police operation against Rodríguez Sol without the knowledge of the public prosecutor’s office and the judiciary. The former chief prosecutor of Catalonia was dismissed in 2013 for supporting the viability of a self-determination referendum in the region, and now the public prosecutor’s office was trying to determine if he was the subject of a “prospective police investigation” to discredit him. However, the investigations conducted “do not show any data to support the reality of the mentioned surveillance” or any other actions related to Martínez Sol, according to the statement. There is “no trace of police actions in this regard”.
In any case, the Prosecutor’s Office points out that the agendas seized from retired commissioner José Manuel Villarejo, held by the Court of Instruction number 6 of the National Court in the context of the “Tandem case”, contain “explicit references” to Rodríguez Sol along with many other individuals and entities. For this reason, the public prosecutor’s office will remain vigilant for any new information that may emerge from this criminal investigation regarding the alleged surveillance of the chief prosecutor.
In the course of the now closed investigation, the Superior Prosecutor’s Office of Catalonia requested the documents published by newspapers La Vanguardia and elDiario.es in January regarding the alleged irregular investigation of Rodríguez Sol, and tasked the National Police with determining the veracity of the documents. The documents reportedly revealed that the police, during the tenure of Minister Jorge Fernández Díaz at the Ministry of the Interior, sought “connections” between the then prosecutor and Unió Democràtica de Catalunya, the party in which Rodríguez Sol ran in the Catalan elections of 2015. During his tenure, the former chief prosecutor had ordered an investigation into the dissemination of false information about former Catalan presidents Artur Mas and Jordi Pujol having offshore accounts.
The Prosecutor’s Office was investigating whether this alleged “prospective police investigation” into Rodríguez Sol could constitute crimes against privacy, administrative prevarication, and forgery of official documents, but ultimately closed the investigation due to lack of evidence of any irregularities.
