Catalan conservative opens can of worms in rejecting Mossos bodyguard

A case of alleged political espionage in Catalonia escalated into an institutional crisis at the weekend when the Popular Party leader in the region, Alicia Sánchez-Camacho, asked that her personal bodyguard provided by the regional Mossos d'Esquadra police force be removed.

In a letter to Catalonia's regional interior chief, Ramon Espadaler of the governing CiU nationalist coalition, Sánchez-Camacho stated that as a senator her security should be guaranteed "in the whole of Spain" and therefore her bodyguard should be provided by the central state's National Police force.

Although she wrote warmly of the Mossos' "professionalism," the PP leader's decision comes after the newspaper La Vanguardia published a story stating that national police officers had identified the personal vehicle of Mossos chief Manel Prat outside the home of private detective Francisco Marco hours before he was arrested.

Marco is the former director of Método 3, a private agency that has been accused of spying on Sánchez-Camacho, allegedly at the behest of Catalan Socialist Party chief José Zaragoza, who resigned from the national Socialist executive last month after voting against the party line over Catalonia's right to hold a referendum on independence. The Mossos denied Prat had been parked outside Marco's home and said the police chief was in the area to collect a journalist who had met with the detective. Espadaler decried "political use" of the Mossos' prestige while his predecessor, Felipe Puig, said Sánchez-Camacho's move was "extremely irresponsible."

Last week a judge acceded to Sánchez-Camacho’s request that the recording of her conversation with the ex-girlfriend of Jordi Pujol Ferrusola, a son of ex-regional leader Jordi Pujol. Victoria Álvarez has accused her former boyfriend of money laundering activities.