The judge maintains that at no time was the Mossos authorized “any indiscriminate study” of the data from the seized mobile phones
The Mossos collected messages calling the Argentine star “hormonal dwarf” and “sewer rat”
The investigating judge of the Barçagate case on alleged unfair administration in Barça has decided to expel from the judicial process the report of the Mossos d’Esquadra in which they implicated the former president of the club, Josep Maria Bartomeu, the CEO Òscar Grau and the head of the legal department Román Gómez Ponti in leaking the contracts of Leo Messi and Gerard Piqué, according to the order to which EL PERIÓDICO, from the Prensa Ibérica group, has had access. In that same police letter, conversations were collected by messaging from the hard core of the previous board of directors in which they revealed animosity towards the Argentine star, to such an extent that Gómez Ponti calls him a “hormonal dwarf” and “sewer rat”.
The magistrate has accepted the appeal presented by these three exalted officials of the Barcelona entity, while warning the Generalitat police that in the analysis of the data found in the mobile phones seized from the accused, they must “adhere” to the investigations into the alleged irregular hiring of a business group for the motorization of the news or comments that were disseminated on social networks. That is, the Barçagate case. The togada, in this way, revokes her decision to incorporate that police report into the judicial proceedings.
The judge maintains in her resolution that at no time were the Mossos “no indiscriminate study” of the data from the seized mobile phones and stresses that the police report does not focus on the facts that are being investigated, Rather, it refers to another crime, such as the possible disclosure of secrets that “are not related” to the Barçagate case. The report has been broken down into the case and stored in a separate piece “for mere registration purposes”, although it is not destroyed, as requested by the prosecution.
the publication
The Mossos pointed out in the aforementioned report that Gómez Ponti and Grau, with the knowledge of Bartomeu, “wanted and intended” to leak the contracts of Messi and Piqué and that they were published by the newspaper El Mundo in 2021 and 2022. One of the elements What the police took into account to reach that conclusion is a long email sent by Gómez Ponti to Bartomeu, with a copy to Grau, in which he proposed “radical measures” to reduce the wage bill, such as the dismissal of players, but added that “it wouldn’t be a bad idea either to publish the million-dollar contracts of the first team so that people can publicly repudiate them& rdquor ;. After 10 months Messi’s contract was published and then Piqué’s.
The police specified that the three defendants could have committed a crime of revealing secrets by having disseminated personal data of these two former players of the Barça entity and whom they consider directly harmed, although they exonerated the media. The Mossos themselves request the court to offer shares to the injured parties, that is, Messi and Piqué. The two former Barça players have not taken any legal action on this matter.