Montoro denies the extortion of the Andorrano Bank that facilitated the evidence of Pujol fiscal fraud: « I feel veiled » | Spain

Former popular minister Cristóbal Montoro arrived at the session of the Congress Research Commission that inquires about the Catalonia operation —A parapolical plot created during Rajoy’s government to spy on independence rivals – this Monday smiling and with a good face. But what came later was a anger session, in which there were several encounters with the Junts, ERC and PSOE spokesmen. There was even some threat of abandonment of the Chamber by Montoro in the face of incriminations. « I feel veiled, I have received much more than false accusations. They should have been much more cautious when doing them, » the former PP leader ended his three -hour appearance, in which he denied extortion to the Andorran bank that facilitated the tests of the fiscal fraud of the fiscal fraud of the fiscal fraud of the fiscal fraud of the fiscal fraud Expresident Jordi Pujol. « How am I going to participate in what does not exist? » He summed up among sly outflows.

Interior launched in 2014 an extortion operation to managers of the Private Banking of Andorra (BPA) to obtain evidence of the fortune he hid in that Pujol entity. The extortion, according to the evidence accumulated during the judicial investigation of this case, resulted and the information obtained by the Ministry, under whose command was Jorge Fernández Díaz, was filtered to a means of communication before even submitting a complaint against the former Catalan independentist leader.

The BPA was intervened by the Andorran authorities a year after the filtration of the Pujol account. His subsidiary in Spain, Banco de Madrid, was also intervened in 2015 by the Bank of Spain. An Andorran judge charged former President Mariano Rajoy; to former minister Montoro and Fernández Díaz; The former Secretary of State for Security, Francisco Martínez, and the former general director of the Police, Ignacio Cosidó, for alleged coercion to the Government of the Principality of Andorra and for a crime of documentary falsehood to obtain banking data from the entity where Pujol kept part of his money. But the Spanish justice denied the Rogatory Commission requested for not considering the accusations sufficiently founded. The complaint of the owners of the Bank of Andorra indicates conversations with police, interior aggregates of the Spanish embassy in Andorra, where they are asked for reserved information from one of its clients, former president Pujol, in exchange for supposedly stopping disciplinary measures against the bank.

« You are a fugitive from justice, » said the deputy of Junts Josep Pagès in reference to the case opened by the Andorran judge and in response to the repeated occasions in which Montoro has branded the Expresident Carles Puigdemont of fugitive from Justice, criticizing that the Government of Pedro Sánchez negotiates with the leader of the independence formation. The former Minister of Finance has denied in resounding the coercion to the Andorrano Bank, although he has made an express mention to the accounts of the Pujol and his family, at the beginning of his speech. « In Catalonia you cannot pay public services, but there are politicians who can pay them because they have abundant accounts in a neighboring country, Andorra, not to pay taxes in Spain. »

But he has rejected data transfer. « If the police have an indication, you have to activate the Treasury, and if Treasury had an indication, you have to activate the police. But there is no procedure that the Treasury, knowing some data, facilitates them to the Police (…) How are we going to have data in the Finance of Not declared accounts? » The former minister of the bouquet has been defended. « How is it possible that information that only the tax administration could have in apocryphal reports? » The deputy of EH Bildu Jon Iñarritu has answered.

Regarding his trips proven to Andorra – along with other releases such as Rajoy – and meetings with members of the Andorrano government, the former Minister of Finance has justified that they occur for political issues. According to its version, he maintained these appointments when the Executive of the neighboring country changed the tax system of both IRPF and the Corporation Tax to address the matter and « normalize the economic relationship. » « We are wasting time, » said the deputy of ERC Pilar Vallugera.

Montoro has appeared on Monday in the Commission after other former PP members of the PP: Rajoy and the former defense minister María Dolores de Cospedal. And, like them, he wanted to give his own definition of what he understands as Operation Catalonia. Like your colleagues in previous sessionisthe former farm of the Treasury has also mentioned the laws of disconnection and the illegal referendum of 1-O. But Montoro has gone a step further, according to his charge. « I have met a Operation of Cataloniathat of the rescue, that of the Autonomous Liquidity Fund. And, in (year) 17, the total intervention of the budget of Catalonia, ”he recalled before referring to the intervention of the autonomous government under article 155 of the Constitution. A movement of which he has said not to feel“ proud ”.“ The worst crisis that I have lived is that of Catalonia, ”he said.

« You were the legal architect of an illegal operation. No crimes were pursued, they were built guilty, » reproached him by the deputy of the PSOE Manuel above. The commission table has agreed to signal two new appearances: that of former Vice President Soraya Saénz and the Expresident Artur Mas, on May 5.