The mayor of Sant Julià de Ramis: "Puigdemont did not show up on October 1. An army did"

The mayor of Sant Julià de Ramis, Marc Puigtió, who has testified this Tuesday at the Catalan Independence process, stated that the Guardia Civil arrived in the town on October 1 "as if they were an army".

Puigtió recalled that they expected the President of the Catalan Government (Generalitat), Carles Puigdemont, to vote in Sant Julià de Ramis.

He added that, due to that reason, more than 50 journalists, in addition to many other people, were actually waiting for him in the pavilion that was bound to serve as the electoral college.

"People thought that Puigdemont was coming, but Puigdemont did not finally show up. An army of the Guardia Civil did. They came walking as if they were, well, let's say an army, straight up, going through an open door to the October 1 square, which is now how it's called. Before everything that happened, that was the Sant Julià de Ramis square."

"They threw them to the ground, they kicked them"​

The witness said that the proceedings of the police officers were very violent, despite the fact that there were many media outlets covering what was happening.

He also accused the Guardia Civil of having prevented an ambulance from reaching the wounded:

"What Line 2 did was hitting all neighbors, straight forward. They threw them on the ground, then kicked them. They did not act too flagrantly because there were many cameras recording their actions, and therefore, there were many low blows."

"The Guardia Civil was throwing people to the ground, leaving people unconscious, and they did not let the ambulance in to assist the people. The ambulance had to stay outside instead and its personnel came walking to the square."

According to Puigtió, the Guardia Civil broke the glass door of the pavilion unnecessarily, as there were other doors open through which they could have entered.

In this video you can see details of the Guardia Civil action in the town

The helicopter that went up and down

The witness said that in addition to the agents in the van, the Guardia Civil sent a helicopter. When Puigtió was starting to attribute a communicative intention to the helicopter, the president of the court, Manuel Marchena, cut him off:

Puigtió: "He went up and down many times, as if indicating "we have arrived here, we are in Sant Julià, we have arrived"."

"Marchena: "I am listening to you with utmost interest, but when you say and interpret what happened ... You have to understand that these are personal evaluations that you should avoid. Just answer the questions and when you refer to the helicopter, say what you saw: that the helicopter, at some point, was going up and down near the neighbors. This "as if indicating" sentence you were starting to refer to is de facto turning into a hypothetical judgment about the intention of the person who piloted the helicopter. Your testimony becomes more valuable you deprive yourself from these references."

Van den Eynde's serenity

After this intervention of Marchena, the lawyer carrying out the interrogation and defence counsel of Oriol Junqueras and Jordi Cuixart, Andreu Van den Eynde, remained silent for a momento, while looking thoughtful, which worried Marchena:

Marchena: "Do you have more questions, gentleman?"

Van den Eynde: "I'm thinking."

Marchena: "Over the questions? This has to be thought of at home, come on... will you ask any other question?"

Van den Eynde (taking his time): "Yes. I just want to recover a bit of serenity in order to be able to exercise the defense duties propperly."

Marchena: "Then go ahead, recover the serenity, and then ask the question."

The next question was whether the Guardia Civil had taken material, to which Puigtió explained that they took all the electoral material and also several laptops.

The witness said that some of these computers were owned by the people who were just there, but that the agents did not want to write any reports so people could not recover their laptops later on.

Finally, he stated that casting votes was plainly impossible in Sant Julià de Ramis, which is why he ended up going to Medinyà, taking advantage of the existence of a universal census.

In this video you can see the intervention of the Guardia Civil on October 1 in Sant Julià de Ramis: