The mayor Toni Rodríguez, former head of investigation of the body, sues the Interior and accuses the number two of the police of requesting data from a judicialized case
The mayor of the Mossos d’Esquadra, Tony Rodriguez, filed a lawsuit in May against the Conselleria d’Interior in which he denounces that he was dismissed as head of the General Criminal Investigation Commission (CGIC) for protecting political interference, the corruption investigations that affected the former Minister of the Interior, Miquel Buch, or the former president of Parliament, Laura Borras, when the latter directed the Institució de les Lletres Catalanes. The case of Buch, political chief of the Mossos and who now faces a request for six years in prison, was the one that triggered more friction between Rodríguez and the current number two of the Catalan police, Eduard Sallent, whom in the lawsuit He is accused of requesting information from a judicial investigation.
In the lawsuit, which must be resolved through administrative channels, it is argued that there was no other motivation than the previous one to remove Rodríguez in December 2021 from a position he had held since April 2021 because, it is reasoned, he had obtained the highest rating in the performance of that position and in the previous stages as number 2 of the CGIC or at the head of the Criminal Investigation Division (DIC). And, after stating that his dismissal was not duly motivated and that he was sent to a destination –as head of the Rubí police station– that corresponds to a lower rank than that of mayor–, he was requests his return to the head of the CGIC.
The Buch investigation
At the beginning of 2019, the prosecution commissioned the Mossos investigate whether the then ‘minister’ of the Interior, Miquel Buch, had prevaricated by creating for a sergeant a position of personal adviser to the department that, basically, what allowed him was to have a salary without the need to work as a police officer and thus be able to act as an escort for Carles Puigdemont in Belgium. The request was not sensitive only because Buch was the political boss of the Mossos but also because the sergeant was a relative of Miquel Esquius, the then chief commissioner of the Mossos. Esquius gave orders for a thorough investigation.
In March 2019, Rafel Comes, in charge of the Central Coordination Superior Commission (CSUCOT), transmitted that order to Mayor Rodríguez, then in charge of the Criminal Investigation Division (DIC). According to the lawsuit filed against the department, Comes appointed Rodríguez as the instructor of those complaints, whom he also authorized to use the resources deemed necessary. Comes also appointed Rodríguez single interlocutor with the Public Prosecutor’s Office and forbade him notify their superiors of the status or development of the investigation.
In June 2019, three months after the start of an investigation by the Mossos that directly affected him, Buch changed the head of the Mossos: Esquius was relieved by Eduard Sallent, an intendant who had been promoted to commissioner that same day. The decision generated discomfort in the body given that Esquius had only been at the helm of the Mossos for ten months. There were not a few commanders who that day crossed out the election of Sallent, whom they described as close to the orbit of the old convergence, of a political movement. Esquius, in his farewell letter, admitted that the ending had been a surprise and stressed that during his leadership he had tried to behave with “political neutrality.”
The disagreement with Sallent
Rodríguez’s lawsuit against Interior states that a few months after taking control of the body, Sallent he proposed to Rodríguez’s direct boss his dismissal. But Comes – who in the fall of 2019 had moved from CSUCOT to CGIC – disregarded that request, considering that there was no reason to do so given the level of the investigations that Rodríguez led and the satisfactory management of his functions.
What preceded that request for Rodríguez’s dismissal by Sallent was that, according to the complaint, Sallent himself had requested a copy of the proceedings from research to Buch. A request that Rodríguez, who while Esquius was in command had received the opposite order – prohibition of reporting – refused to comply. Rodríguez’s disobedience generated “tension” in the leadership, underlines the complaint. But Sallent finally, by means “unknown” by Rodríguez, obtained that copy of the proceedings. The situation between Sallent and Rodríguez, after that incident, worsened and, in the opinion of the latter, it was due to the actions of the former who “seriously” hampered investigations such as affected Buch or Borràs and that motivated the mayor to end up requesting protection from the Superior Court of Justice of Catalonia (TSJC) to prevent him from being removed from his position while he continued with the cases that affected the Government of the Generalitat.
When the ‘major’ Josep Lluís Trapero was acquitted by the National Court, and reinstated as head of the Mossos, relieving Sallent, the alleged political interference ceased and Rodríguez finished the investigation of both corruption cases that are currently awaiting trial. However, when Trapero was relieved again, thirteen months later, Sallent returned to the prefecture of the body. And a few days later, Rodríguez was sent to the Rubí police station.
New suspicions of political interference
Months after Sallent returned to command the Mossos d’Esquadra as number 2, the chief commissioner, Josep Maria Estela, demanded that the Interior be removed from the prefecture. Estela asked the Interior for Sallent to leave the prefecture, understanding that he made decisions on his behalf, decisions that he had previously agreed with the general director, Peter Ferrerbut apart from Estela.
That episode, like that of Rodríguez’s complaint, basically concerns the same controversy: that of the political interference of the ‘conselleria’ over the Mossos that, in both cases, have supposedly required the figure of Sallent, more receptive to department instructions.