An Andorran judge has notified the former Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy and the one who was his Minister of the Interior, Jorge Fernández Díaz, who is investigating them as a result of a lawsuit for alleged pressure on the Banca Privada d’Andorra (BPA) to obtain information from Catalan politicians during the procés.
The investigation derives from a complaint, admitted for processing in 2020, presented by the Institut de Drets Humans d’Andorra, Drets and the former president of BPA, Higini Cierco, for the call ‘Operation Catalonia’ and includes as investigated the former Secretary of State for the Interior Francis Martinez and the former Police Director Ignacio Cosidó, as reported by the complainant entities.
Andorra’s number 2 investigating judge, Stéphanie Garcia Garcia, has now issued rogatory commissions to notify the complaint to the defendants and gives them fifteen days to appoint legal representationwarning them that if they do not do so, one will be appointed ex officio, the Institut and Drets have explained in a statement.
The judge has also agreed send letters rogatory again to the former deputy operational director (DAO) of the National Police Eugenio Pino and to former chief inspector Bonifacio Diezwho were already cited in their day but did not appear.
The complaint, which was initially directed against members of the so-called “patriotic police”, was later expanded as a result of the incorporation of new complainants, including the Pujol family.
The complaint, filed by the crimes of coercion, threats, extortion, blackmail and false documentationaccuses Rajoy and Fernández Díaz of sending members of the police to pressure those responsible for the BPA to obtain information on the bank accounts of Catalan politicians in the Principality, including former president Artur Mas, the ERC leader Oriol Junqueras or the Pujol family .
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The complaint maintains that the Spanish government would have extorted those responsible for BPA, threatening them with forcing the closure of the entity and its Spanish subsidiary Banco Madrid -both already closed- if they did not provide the required information.
According to the complainants, Rajoy’s government allegedly sent false information about BPA to the United States financial crime control office, while “intimidating” the Andorran government and his ministers on an official visit to the Principality in January 2015, to precipitate the closure of the entity.