Playing dirty

A group of police officers that lurks in the safety of anonymity and apparently beyond the control of the Interior Ministry is taking part in irregular investigative practices with the aim of discrediting the political class that governs Catalonia in response to a move toward independence for the region. The strategy used by these officers is to draw up and distribute unsigned reports that have not been requested by any agency and the sole purpose of which seems to be their eventual publication in certain sectors of the media. Making use of judicial investigations that have been officially opened, the authors of these reports mix facts that have been established with other information that is either uncorroborated or simply untrue, all proceeding from anonymous sources. In this way, Catalan premier Artur Mas has been publicly accused of diverting money resulting from illegal commissions to Switzerland, and allegations of money laundering or tax evasion by the region’s leading newspapers have been aired.

The first example of these extra-legal practices exploded on to the media stage in the middle of the Catalan electoral campaign. The document, supposedly by the UDEF Fiscal and Economic Crime Unit but which the chief of this department described as a fake as none of his agents had drawn it up, attacked Mas and his predecessor as CiU nationalist bloc leader, former regional premier Jordi Pujol. Using information from informants that the report’s authors had not even interrogated, the document includes allegations of serious fraud and abuse of office. In some of the anonymous reports that continue to do the rounds in Spain’s conservative media outlets there are serious flaws in the presentation of information that is nevertheless used to level unjustified accusations at Mas and other Catalan nationalist politicians.

The Catalan government and the CiU political bloc currently in power most definitely have a case to answer when it comes to corruption. There are two major ongoing investigations into instances of alleged theft of public funds in which officials from Convergència (the senior partner in the coalition with Unió) have been implicated and, in some cases, actually face charges. Justice must be done and seen to be done in these cases. But this cannot serve as an excuse for the circulation of anonymous reports from police circles, the clear purpose of which is to be used as political weapons. The secessionist bent within the Catalan ruling class should be met by a purely political response from Spain’s national institutions, and not be attacked by forces from the gutters of the state.

The Interior Ministry has shown a surprising inability to put a stop to the emergence of these documents, an unfortunate circumstance that is exacerbated by the credence given to the allegations by high-ranking government figures. Despite the fact that a month and a half has elapsed since the ministry opened an investigation to uncover the source of these rogue reports attributed to the UDEF, no information has been made public. Episodes such as this give police work a bad name and diminish the credibility of investigations that should lead to major criminal proceedings. Interior Minister Jorge Fernández Díaz and the director general of the National Police, Ignacio Cosidó, should do their utmost to investigate and punish those responsible in order to avoid the proliferation of practices that tend to be associated with authoritarian regimes.