Turull case gets dismissed
The public prosecutor’s office had filed a complaint against the former minister for transferring assets to his wife before 1-O
The case against former Catalan minister and member of the Catalan pro-independence platform JxCat, Jordi Turull, was dismissed yesterday by the High Court of Justice of Catalonia (TSJC). The public prosecutor had accused him of false insolvency because he transferred assets to his wife, Blanca Bragulat, who was also charged, before the referendum on October 1.
Judge Francisco Valls Gombau said yesterday there was not “sufficient proof of rational pre-existing criminal evidence when formulating the lawsuit for transfer of assets”.
The Public Prosecutor of Catalonia had filed the accusation against Jordi Turull on May 30 2017, in which Turull was said to have attempted to evade civil liability in the Supreme Court rebellion case by giving Blanca Bragulat half a house in Parets del Vallès (valued at 84,452 euro) and half a shared current account containing 107,594 euro.
On October 8 Jordi Turull and Blanca Bragulat had told the TSJC that in June 2017 they were only “regularizing a financial asset situation”. And this is stated by the judge in his ruling. The ruling alludes to several Supreme Court decisions in which in cases of co-ownership of a current account, the ownership of the money must be demonstrated. Turull’s defence, carried out by criminal lawyer Jordi Pina, did just this, it showed that the money was contributed by Jordi Turull’s wife. In relation to the donation of half the house in Parets del Vallès, the judge states that Bragulat “had made great contributions to its rehabilitation”, and that accordingly “it could therefore be viewed as, a payment in kind rather than a donation”.