Millo in the Supreme Court in 10 sentences: from the Fairy trap to the "lucidity" of Puigdemont
The declaration of the ex-delegate of the Spanish Government in Catalonia, Enric Millo, was crammed with categorical statements as well as contradictions induced by the defence counsels.
In the line of the declaration on Monday of the former Secretary of State for Security, José Antonio Nieto, Millo confirmed the narrative of the State Attorney General's Office over the violence exercised by the pro-independence movement in Autumn 2017.
Millo copied Junqueras: " I found an empty chair on the other side of the table"
Millo made an expression used by Oriol Junqueras during his declaration his own, in this case addressing the attitude of Carles Puigdemont in the meetings they had in 2017:
"I always found an empty chair on the other side of the table."
He hoped for "a stage of lucidity" from Puigdemont
According to Millo, after the last conversation, in June, he felt that "the formal relationship had ended" but that, in any case, he had the hope that it wouldn't reach the end:
"I hoped that he would rectify, that he would have a stage of lucidity that would make him rectify, but this didn't happen."
The "clear violent component"
He stated that, despite the "peaceful demonstrations, others had "a clear violent component":
"There were peaceful demonstrations and there were other ones that had a clear violent component of aggressiveness, harassment, throwing of objects, of attacks on people That, to my understanding, constituted a clear violent component."
The "tremendous importance" of the CDRs
Millo highlighted the role of the CDRs in the mobilisations as well as their "violent actions":
"Here there were organisations and associations and movements, also clearly the CDRs that took on tremendous importance in the development of all these events."
"I have been asked at times: are these CDRs violent?' Well look, some of them are, and some are not. Denying they are violent is false, you cannot deny what they are. Now, all of them? No. But denying that that there are some You cannot do that."
The Security Committee of the 28-S, "grotesque"
Millo complained that Puigdemont called an Extraordinary Security Committee meeting without notice on the 28th of September, and called this meeting "grotesque":
"This is what we had: a part of the table that suggested the referendum be held, and at the same time, the Catalan police would stop it. In my village they call this sucking and blowing at the same time."
He contradicted himself regarding whether the polling stations had to be sealed
"From the 27th there was the obligation to prevent the use of the spaces destined for carrying out the referendum. That is what was stated. How to prevent this use? The easiest way was closing and sealing those places. From here on, everyone will explain what they did."
The girl with the broken fingers
Millo said that, when he arrived home on the 1st of October, he found his daughter crying due to the images she had seen on television of how the police had broken the fingers of a girl, and added that this was proven false later on:
"This caused a controversy and, finally, she confessed publicly that it was not true, that she had lied, and apologised publicly, which honours her, because that is the action of an honest person, who acknowledged what happened days later. But during that day..."
The "Fairy" trap during the referendum
"An officer told me that he had fallen in the Fairy trap. "Fairy?". I asked what that was. He told me that it consisted in pouring washing-up liquid on the entrance of some polling stations so that the police would slip up and fall, then (people would) bang their heads. This is what they explained to me."
He said TV3 "distortioned" him
Asked if he apologised for the injuries of the 1-O, Millo said that TV3 "distortioned" some of his declarations made in a television interview because, he stated, the apology had to be made by Carles Puigdemont:
"Clearly, the person who had to apologise was the President of the Catalan government, who was the person responsible and the representative of the state, and on him not doing so, I demanded an apology. But later, the headline distortioned my message, which was out loud, as if as if I was asking for forgiveness for the actions. Nothing could have been further from my intention, because I had explained myself on that regard on many occasions."
"Expansive need of after-school activity"
Millo complained over the "amazing number" of activities held in the polling stations on the weekend of the 1-O:
"There was a totally unheard expansive need for after-school activity during that weekend, unknown in the history of humanity. Besides that, I cannot really say any more, because in none of the posters that announced the events, was there a reference to the referendum."
Related interactive resource: The keys of the Catalan independence trial
