PP accuses Illa's visit to Mossos: “She went to thank them for not respecting the law”
The deputy secretary of the PP's Autonomous Coordination, Elías Bendodo, insisted this Wednesday on the “connivance” of the government in the escape of Carles Puigdemont last week, as proof, according to him, that the first visit of the Catalan president, Salvador Illa, was to the headquarters of the Mossos d'Esquadra, where he went to “thank” the Catalan police for letting Puigdemont escape after his brief appearance at an event in Barcelona on August 8.
“Today, what Mr. Illa is going to do is symptomatic, that is, to go to the headquarters of the Mossos d'Esquadra, I suppose to thank them for not respecting the law,” he said, then ironically saying that he supposes that “he will also explain to them how the Minister of the Interior made them bear all the responsibility” for the escape. At the request of Supreme Court Justice Pablo Llarena, who accuses Puigdemont of embezzlement, the government sent a report on Tuesday in which it indicates that all the responsibility for the operation to arrest the former president a week ago during Illa's inauguration corresponded to the Mossos.
“Let no one be fooled, in Catalonia there is still a pro-independence president: when you think like a pro-independence, you act like a pro-independence, you manage like a pro-independence, you put pro-independence in your government and you think like them, you are obviously pro-independence,” he accused the new president.
After recalling that a week ago “the scandalous representation and staging of the Puigdemont escape rally was perpetuated”, he stressed that this was possible “with the connivance of the Spanish government”. “He entered and left as he enters and leaves the Waterloo Gate”, he noted. He insisted that, in his opinion, “all Spaniards” know that both the President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, and the Ministers of Defense and the Interior, Margarita Robles and Fernando Grande-Marlaska, respectively, were aware of Puigdemont's plans, which means that they have asked the President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, for explanations.
He insisted that “it was known that a gathering was going to take place, that they were going to set up a stage and that it had to be authorised by the Barcelona City Council, governed by the Socialist Party”, arguments that led him to add: “They knew it, they kept it quiet, they hid it and it happened. So it is absolutely scandalous. (EFE)