The Supreme Prosecutor's Office reports against opening a case to Puigdemont for the management of Aguas de Girona

• Reasoned statement: A judge asks the Supreme Court to investigate Carles Puigdemont for the fraud of Aguas de Girona

The

's

of the

has sent a report this Wednesday where it does not appreciate evidence of crime in the management that former Catalan president

made of the Aguas de Girona when he was mayor of that town.

In the report, to which EL MUNDO has had access, the Public Ministry takes a position against the Criminal Chamber of the High Court opening a criminal case against the fugitive MEP for the alleged irregularities detected in the management of the Aguas de Girona,

between 1998 and 2013 and requests the file of the proceedings.

For the prosecutor, the facts collected in the rationale sent by the head of the Court of Instruction number 2 of Girona do not fit either in the crime of prevarication or in the misappropriation of public funds or fraud against the Administration or as a falsehood.

The Girona judge requested the imputation of Puigdemont for designing "an operation to hide" that the art collection acquired by the Girona City Council from the heirs of Santos Torroella that was made at the expense of the amounts received as a result of the establishment of the so-called " initial canon "in the concession of the public water service in the Girona City Council.

Judge

appreciated that, under the municipal mandate of Puigdemont, "an artifice was devised, from the budgets of the Government team that was assumed, with greater or lesser knowledge, by eleven councilors in the plenary session of February 14, 2014. And that artifice led to a substantial decrease in the heritage of the City Council in an area as sensitive as water. "

However, the Office of the High Court Prosecutor maintains that "the assignment of a public purpose other than the municipal water canon, carrying out transfers of credits not consented to by the legislation to other public purposes, does not constitute unfair administration of public assets with excess of the management powers that cause damage, nor does it imply the appropriation or theft, for itself or for a third party, of money, effects, securities or any other public goods by the municipal authority that distracts the purpose without abandoning its application to the public sector ".

The Public Ministry explains that "the deviation of use to other public purposes only constitutes an administrative offense by application of the principle of minimum intervention of criminal law."

No "artifice" to defraud

In the brief, the prosecutor of the

Chamber

and the prosecutor of the Supreme Court

- who consider the Criminal Chamber competent to hear these facts - argue that "after ruling out the existence of embezzling acts, the attributed action, in principle, Mr. Puigdemont, as mayor of Girona, is reduced to the acquisition for the Municipal Museum of a collection of works of art, having paid part of the price -1,000,000 euros out of a total of 3,900,000 euros- of that acquisition with the amount received by the City Council, charged to the funds obtained after extending the concession contracts in favor of the mixed company AGISSA - Aiguas de Girona, Salt i Sarriá- to manage the collection of the water canon, and which should have been applied to the financing of municipal spending related to the integral water cycle ".

In this case, the prosecutors also do not appreciate the commission of a crime of prevarication: "In our case, the administrative illegality being true, because the water canon was used without respecting its finalistic and budgetary limits, it cannot be understood that the resolution issued It has been by incompetent body, nor that the essential rules of procedure have been dispensed with, nor that it is a consequence of the commission of a criminal offense or expression thereof, especially if it is taken into account that the deviation of public purpose today constitutes without plus an administrative offense ", explain the public prosecutors.

Likewise, the Public Ministry considers that the existence of an "artifice" to defraud the Girona City Council is not appreciable, in order to be able to consider that a crime of fraud or the crime of documentary falsification has been committed.

Once the report from the Prosecutor's Office, favorable to the filing of the procedure, has been obtained, the Admission Chamber of the Supreme Court will have to decide whether or not to open a criminal investigation to the measurer.

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