The communications leadership of Esquerra Republicana knew of the authorship of the posters of the Maragall brothers and Alzheimer’s and tried to hide the scandal. Although the action was unilateral by the party’s Anoia militants, in some audios to which they have accessed RAC1, corresponding to a meeting on February 8, the ex-vice councilor for Strategy and Government Communication, Sergi Sabrià; the vice secretary general of the same branch in the Republican Left, Oriol Duran; the former communications director of the party, Tolo Moya and the Republican manager and vice secretary of finance, Jordi Roig, clarified that they knew that the Mossos report would end up indicating that it was a false flag attack.
During the conversation, the four of them explain how they would react if the scandal pointed directly at the party. For his part, Oriol Duran assumes in the audio that the Mossos report would end up pointing to the party and stresses that they should have access to it. Sergi Sabrià joined this request in order to be able to anticipate the response to it, something to which Jordi Roig adds that, when it is known who the report points to, it would be necessary to carry out an internal investigation.
During the meeting, the four also discussed how to respond to the reaction that the former number one of ERC in Barcelona, Ernest Maragall, might have when he found out about the plot. Sabrià admitted that Maragall would be very angry, but he was confident that, after the explanations, he would withdraw the complaint and the police investigation would be closed.
In this sense, it was proposed to put up a firewall. Oriol Duran explains in this meeting that all responsibility must be placed on the young militants of Anoia: “These boys do little things and they work, but they get carried away.” In this way, they want to make it clear that the action of these members was unilateral, and he underlines: “You have to put the blame on Pol and you have to apologize, but you put the blame on Pol.” Both Tolo Moya and Jordi Roig emphasize that it is an action that was the work of these young people and not of the party’s communications leadership: “We have organized this, but it has happened.” It is also clear from the audios that the president of the Generalitat, Pere Aragonès, was aware of this false flag attack because Maragall told him so after learning what the Mossos report elucidated.
These audios come two weeks after Sergi Sabrià announced his resignation as deputy minister of the Catalan executive. During the event – which was attended by Ernest Maragall – he defended his innocence and denied being behind this action against the Maragalls: “I’m not doing it (dismissing) because he is guilty.” In fact, he only admitted the existence of campaigns “without the party logo” against other political rivals.
Sabrià added that he never approved “nor would he approve an action like that of Alzheimer’s, which goes beyond ethical limits”. The former member of the Catalan Government pointed out that, when he became aware of the fact that the initiative came from the ranks of the Republican Party, he passed it on to the management and took the opportunity to attack Oriol Junqueras. The former president of ERC denied from the beginning that he had any knowledge of this plot. The former Republican leader, in addition, claims this Wednesday in an article published in The vanguard against “an alleged internal conspiracy within our party to carry out deplorable smear campaigns.” Junqueras also calls for “getting to the bottom of the responsibilities for such unworthy actions.”
On the other hand, the internal investigation of Esquerra concluded last Friday with two members provisionally suspended – the former director of Communication of the party, Tolo Moya, and the member of Anoia who carried out the action – and with a minor sanction for Sergi Sabrià and the predecessor of Oriol Duran at the head of the vice-secretariat general of Communication and Strategy of the Republicans, Marc Colomer.
However, in a letter addressed to the party, Moya denounced a “clear lack of guarantees” in the investigation process and referred to Oriol Duran, stating that “he demonstrates knowledge of the case and clearly states that he does not want to carry out an investigation into the case.” For Tolo Moya, the former secretary of Media and Publicity of the Generalitat should not have been part of the ethics commission that investigated the action against the Maragalls due to his knowledge of the facts. The former director of communications of ERC asked that the case be followed by the party’s guarantees commission and not by a body that depends on the national leadership.
Source: www.lavanguardia.com
