Barcelona: espionaje, policía secreta y la batalla por Cataluña [Financial Times]

Financial Times publica hoy un extenso, completo y demoledor reportaje sobre las cloacas del Govern de Puigdemont. El rotativo cuenta que los Mossos "crearon una especie de servicio secreto de espionaje catalán" dentro de la policía y que estaba dirigido a aquellos que tenían una ideología política diferente del gobierno". Habla también de la nebulosa 'Operación Cataluña'. El reportaje, que se nutre de diversas fuentes, cuenta como 'garganta profunda' con el oficial de inteligencia de la policía catalana Jordi Cruz.

Cruz is carrying a heavy-looking black pistol in the waistband of his jeans, covered by his dark hooded jumper. He is here to shine a light on a spying scandal that risks sending dozens in Catalonia to jail — from police officers to politicians. So he is nervous. “My [Catalan police] colleagues could kill me for talking to a journalist, seriously,” he says. “I am not sure what these guys are capable of.” (...)

Cruz says the reality of what has been happening in the region is even more shocking than the headlines. From at least 2014, he claims, the police force of Catalonia, which was controlled by the pro-independence regional government, started working on an extraordinary initiative: developing its own secret intelligence service to rival that of the Spanish state. Furthermore, he says, this force has been used to spy on lawyers, politicians, professors, journalists and civil-society groups deemed opponents of the independence process.

“They were creating a kind of secret Catalan spy service,” says Cruz, who is talking because he believes that the police should be “upholding the law” and not engaging in politics. He became aware of the service through friends who were on the inside. “This group, this spy service within the police were targeting those who had a different political ideology from the government . . . It’s as if the Scottish regional government started trying to create its own rival to MI5 [the UK’s domestic intelligence service] and were targeting people for their political ideology . . . It’s extraordinary, it’s simply unbelievable that this could happen.”

The Catalan police declined to comment. The Catalan interior ministry said it was “not aware” of such actions taking place and that it could not comment further as the allegations are subject to a judicial investigation that could end up in court. But these are not the wild claims of one policeman.

Four officers in the Catalan police force interviewed by the Financial Times, as well as people close to the Spanish intelligence services and the Spanish government, say that they believe attempts were made to set up a Catalan intelligence agency to further the cause of breaking up Spain.

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