Spain’s ex-PM Mariano Rajoy ran smear campaign against Catalan independence leaders, reports claim

The Spanish government of former conservative prime minister Mariano Rajoy orchestrated a smear campaign against Catalan independence leaders using fabricated evidence created by senior police officers, according to reports.

The allegations are made by La Vanguardia newspaper and ElDiario.es news site, which have published the findings of a joint investigation unearthing dozens of documents they say show how Mr Rajoy’s administration used the police against political opponents with his knowledge.

The reports published state that former interior minister Jorge Fernández Díaz started gathering incriminating information against senior Catalan politicians in the autumn of 2012, shortly after a massive street demonstration in Barcelona had underlined the independence movement’s growing momentum.

To this end he received so-called “informative notes” from senior police officers and the former secretary of state for security Francisco Martínez, many of which were then passed on to the prime minister. According to ElDiario.es these documents were “a kind of intelligence report, without signature or stamp, in which confidential information obtained behind the backs of judges was combined with rumour, false information and excerpts from court documents”.

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One such note claimed that then-Catalan regional president Artur Mas, who at the time was the most visible figure in the independence movement, had large amounts of money in a bank account in Liechtenstein.

The anonymous document stated that the independence movement was worried about information referring to “cases of specific self-enrichment of leaders, especially AM [Artur Mas], who is now presenting himself as the saviour of his people”.

The bank account claim was leaked to a major right-leaning newspaper, El Mundo, which published the allegation on its front page shortly before a tightly fought Catalan election. However, it turned out to be false. A similar fabricated claim was made against the then mayor of Barcelona Xavier Trias.

According to the latest findings the unlawful efforts to discredit Catalan leaders continued at least until 2016. In 2017 Mr Rajoy’s government temporarily introduced direct rule in Catalonia following an attempt by the region to secede.

Reports about the alleged smear attempts against independence leaders, known as Operation Catalonia, have been circulating for years as part of an apparently broader deep-state apparatus. However the case has never reached the courts.

This is the first time that such claims have been substantiated so thoroughly. La Vanguardia and ElDiario.es said they would publish further revelations in the coming days.

Socialist prime minister Pedro Sánchez responded to the reports by describing this as “one of the most regrettable and shameful episodes in the democratic history of our country”.

“There are very few such examples or parallels in other consolidated democracies of major state resources such as the security forces being used to go after political adversaries,” he said, calling for the case to be investigated “to the final consequences”.

Mr Rajoy’s PP government was removed from power in 2018 via a no-confidence motion due to a string of corruption cases.

Mr Fernández Díaz is due to go on trial in a separate case in which he is accused of involvement in spying on a former PP treasurer Luis Bárcenas, who had leaked to the media documents alleged to show the existence of an illegal slush fund used by the party. The former minister has denied any wrongdoing. However, the latest revelations have put his former boss, Mr Rajoy, under scrutiny.

Fernando López Miras, the PP’s president of the southern Murcia region, appeared to defend the former prime minister. “If anyone has used their whole government, the power of the state and the powers given him by the constitution to stop a coup d’état, a coup in Catalonia, it was Rajoy,” he said.

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