Promotion for the paramilitary officer who was responsible for Spain's widely-criticised response to the Catalan independence referendum last October 1st: Diego Pérez de los Cobos, colonel in the Civil Guard and the coordinator of the three police bodies that were tasked with responding to Catalonia's independence vote last year, will be promoted to the rank of general in the next few days and given a command in Madrid, according to Spanish daily El Mundo.
Pérez de los Cobos will thus leave his current posting in Spain's interior ministry if his promotion is confirmed. In his new position at the Command of the Armed Institute, based in the Madrid town of Tres Cantos, he is to have 4,000 officers under his control.
Last Thursday, the colonel denied under oath that on the day of the referendum there was any police violence. Before Supreme Court judge Pablo Llarena, Pérez de los Cobos argued that "there were only police actions to fulfill the judicial mandate". Over a thousand people in Catalonia received medical attention for injuries received resulting from the police operation.
In his testimony, Diego Pérez de los Cobos also pointed his finger at the chief of Catalonia's Mossos d'Esquadra police force, Josep Lluís Trapero, as the officer responsible for facilitating the vote on 1st October. Despite the clampdown, well over two million ballots were cast.