The statements made by the Republican Left (ERC) deputy and member of the Catalan parliamentary bureau, Ruben Wagensberg, on the day it was made public that, some time ago now, he shifted his residence to Switzerland, could not be more eloquent: "I am afraid to return to Catalonia, seeing how the situation is developing; afraid of being arbitrarily arrested". For those who do not know, the reasons for this fear have to do with the case that the National Audience judge Manuel García-Castellón is pursuing in the Democratic Tsunami investigation, into which he has incorporated accusations of terrorism against the exiled Catalan president Carles Puigdemont and the ERC secretary general, Marta Rovira, and in which a dozen other people also appear, including Wagensberg, as well as other independence movement sympathizers, some linked to sovereignist parties and groups.
Wagensberg's attitude is not at all strange, in view of everything we are going through. And neither is it a coincidence that this news has broken after the Congress of Deputies rejected the amnesty bill due to the vote against it from Together for Catalonia (Junts), which has given a rather big setback to the Socialists (PSOE) and especially to Pedro Sánchez. At times, the medium is the message and the story was initially published in the Spanish digital newspaper El Confidencial with a shock wave that would impact in several ways: the first, opening the way for García-Castellón to summons the defendants under investigation sooner or later; the second, sowing doubts about the real effectiveness of the amnesty law in the future and not only with the current wording - although that, too, requires a serious adjustment. It is not normal for people to be afraid not because of proven facts, but because of inconsistent accusations.
Basically, they are talking about the lack of judicial guarantees, something that, expressed in another way, was also verbalized this Tuesday by the Spain's first-ranked deputy prime minister, María Jesús Montero, who affirmed that she fully understood that Wagensberg had gone to Switzerland. It is clearly a great concern when these words of Montero are projected on everything that is happening in the courtrooms of García-Castellón and, in Barcelona, of Joaquín Aguirre. I would venture to say that a judicial snowball aimed at a new independence process trial is beginning to roll. As if the previous one, the Supreme Court trial of 2019, had not existed or was insufficient. The independence process trial 3.0 has a legal fit that is practically impossible, as leading jurists and the National Audience public prosecutors themselves have highlighted through their opposition to the terrorism accusations, as well as the Barcelona prosecutors assigned to the Volhov case, who understand that there is a lack of logical motivation for the investigation and, essentially, that it is prospective in nature.
It is all about constructing the foundations in the media for the new independence movement trial, and for the amnesty law to not be applicable to an indeterminate number of people
But García-Castellón and Aguirre continue to go their own way with very serious, critical accusations. Accusations that, naturally, have an impact in Europe, because people have failed to grasp the red lines that have been crossed by Spanish justice, and thus only see that there are accusations of terrorism and treason being made. In 2017 and subsequently, there was talk of a coup d'état and of rebellion. Afterwards, not even the Supreme Court was able to sustain this and it was lowered a grade, to sedition. But the earlier idea had already become embedded and they had become coup plotters accused of rebellion. The most important thing was the narrative - and indeed, the PSOE was also part of this at the time - and what the TV networks said. Today, they are zooming in on terrorism and treason. The first, adorned with elements that are fake, but effective - there is even a supposed royal motorcade mooted as being targeted for an attack. None of it seems to be true: neither the motorcade, nor any preparation of the alleged attack. But it is disseminated hundreds of times and people hold debates on the subject.
In the Volhov case, there are Russian spies and Putin supporting the independence of Catalonia in a story that doesn't even have enough for a movie script. But that is the least important aspect. What it is all about is constructing the foundations in the media for the new independence movement trial, and for the amnesty law to not be applicable to an indeterminate number of people - a figure currently estimated to be around seventy, but which, like all prospective cases, can be gradually increased according to the consumer's taste.