Spain’s embattled PM Pedro Sánchez was notified in advance of the pending acquittal of a key figure in the illegal referendum for Catalan independence, the leaker has confirmed.
Magistrate José Ramón Navarro was president of the National Court from January 2014 to March 2025. Confronted with a chain of messages between himself and the PM during a crucial trial, Navarro acknowledges the messages and said “I can’t deny it” of the allegations that they seem to confirm.
Catalan police chief Josep Lluís Trapero—an erstwhile major in the Mossos d’Esquadra—stood accused of belonging to a “complex and heterogeneous criminal organisation” under former Catalan president Carles Puigdemont, Time and again, Sánchez’s ruling socialists, the PSOE, made concessions to Puigdemont to draw on his support. If Trapero was convicted, Sánchez had a lot to lose.
The latest revelations are also likely to prove damaging. Two months prior to the Court’s judgement being made public, Sánchez was involved in a reassuring correspondence with its then president, Magistrate Navarro, whose advice included “They are going to acquit Trapero… so that you can handle it.”
On October 1st, 2017, Trapero’s Mossos were obliged by law to close down polling booths set up in schools for an illegal independence referendum. Their deliberate ‘hands off’ approach led to the involvement of Spanish civil guards and national police officers, whereupon some violence ensued.
The latest news of illicit collaboration between the National Court and Sánchez will add to the ongoing scandals surrounding his government, which have been almost always indulged by his allies in the European Union as a ‘national matter’ for him alone to address.
