Ferran López: "Puigdemont told us that he would declare independence if there was violence on October 1"

On Wednesday in the Catalan independence trial, inspector Ferran López stated that president Carles Puigdemont told the Catalan Police (Mossos) that he would declare independence if there was violence on 1-O in a meeting on 28 September 2017.

López, who was then part of the Mossos prefecture along with Major Josep Lluís Trapero and inspector Joan Carles Molinero stated, when questioned by Supreme Court prosecutor Javier Zaragoza, that Puigdemont said so after they explained what could happen during the referendum:

López: "I do recall that mister Puigdemont told us that if the scenario we had predicted took place, he would declare independence at that very moment."

Zaragoza: "Is that what he said?"

López: "Yes, I remember it. I believe it is a sentence we all remember perfectly as it is very hard to forget. I cannot recall the exact wording of the first part, because I cannot remember if he said violence or public riots, but if what we were describing were to take place, that would be his reaction."

Prosecutor Javier Zaragoza, questioning Ferran López in the Supreme Court on Wednesday

Forn "was pulling in the opposite direction"

At the beginning of his statemnet, when questioned by the attorney sent by Vox, Pedro Fernández, López stated that former minister Joaquim Forn "was pulling in the opposite direction" to that of the Mossos before the referendum.

López said so when he was stating that the corps intended to comply with the mandate to prevent the referendum, and that Forn's public statements were causing unease within the corps:

"The Mossos were willing to comply with court orders in a situation that was abnormal for us, due to the fact that we had a minister who was pulling in the opposite direction to ours."

Pérez de los Cobos' refusal

López also struck at the opposing side: according to his statement, he had offered to the coordinator of the 1-O operation, Diego Pérez de los Cobos, that the three police corps should be coordinated from the central headquarters of the Mossos, but that he refused.

The inspector said that he proposed it in the coordination meeting on 25 September, and that everyone accepted it then:

"In this meeting I proposed that the way we should function on October 1 should be with a single command centre, namely, that the State Secretariat, the Policía Nacional and the Guardia Civil should have come to the headquarters of the Mossos d'Esquadra, to the coordination room, both at the central level and at the level of each region."

"This would have allows us to follow up on the operation directly, so that the support that was to be provided through pairs of police officers would have been available and close at hand."

The inspector stated that the mood in coordination meetings with the other law enforcement agencies was always "friendly" and that, in that meeting, his proposal was accepted without any issues.

López stated that Pérez de los Cobos changed his mind in a later meeting, on the 29th, when he decided to divide coordination into provincial "follow-up cells":

"What he was organising was a system of follow-up cells in such a manner that 4 follow-up cells would be established, one in each of the provincial government offices in Barcelona, Girona, Lleida and Tarragona."

The "event manager" that failed

The inspector stated that, according to Pérez de los Cobos' plan, each one of these four cells would be in touch through a computer application called an "event manager".

According to his explanations, this application did not work: it only sent information to Madrid, to the State Secretary for Security, and the cells did not receive any information; as a result, they had to make "blind" decisions.
 

Related interactive resource: The keys of the Catalan independence trial