Puigdemont believed that 10,000 soldiers had promised to set aside a “joke in bad taste”.
A few days before the unilateral declaration of independence (DUI) in late October 2017, Carles Puigdemont, then-president of the Generalitat, met with representatives of the Russian government. At these meetings, Kremlin envoys offered to help finance Catalonia, especially to pay off debts it had made with Spain, once it achieved separation with cryptocurrencies. In addition, he promised 10,000 Russian troops if necessary, but once it was Catalan territory, an independent state. Puigdemont considered the offer a “joke in bad taste” and did not attribute the offer.
This was explained by the former Foreign Secretary of Convergence, Victor Teradelas, in his statement before the Inquiry Court No. 1 of Barcelona within the investigation opened for the alleged diversion of public funds to NGOs through the Barcelona Provincial Council. on which they work. cooperative issues. Teradellus explained that because of his extensive knowledge of the international world, he was approached by people posing as “envoys from the environment” of the Kremlin, who wanted to know the situation in Catalonia before the crucial moments of the sovereignty process.
That is why I went with the Russian envoys to two meetings with Puigdemont on October 24 and 25, and Nikolay Sadovnikov, a businessman from several companies domiciled in Red Square, was present in the second place, and who was very close to Putin and are persons. I sometimes acted informally on behalf of the Kremlin. However the OCCRP Media Consortium investigation places this Sadovnikov meeting on October 26, the day before the DUI.
Teradelas assured the judge that Puigdemont was “shocked” by the Russian envoys’ proposal, did not believe it, and limited himself to listening during the meeting without commenting on the proposal. The Russians were interested to know how to finance themselves from a hypothetical independent Catalonia and how they would deal with the payment of public debt with Spain, so, always the investigative statements, they offered to help with cryptocurrencies. Teradellus denies that the Russians sought in exchange for creating “a new Switzerland” with virtual currency in Catalonia, as he himself explained to other defendants in the case. woloh The audio was intervened by the Civil Guard.
Other members of the government did not attend these meetings, although the later minister Elsa Artadi was in one of them, and Teradellus assured that he had not acted on behalf of Puigdemont and that the then-president himself had to explain the sovereignty project. was limited to. He also indicated that a year later he traveled to Russia and met with Sadovnikov, although he prepared that meeting in the private sphere.
In his statement, Teradelas also pointed out the subsidies received by two NGOs which he participated in together with the current deputy of JAXCat Francesc de Dalmases, and that they were for international projects and to create a magazine. Thus, he insists that all actions are fair and denies irregularities, as held by the court, although he added that in 2012 and 2013 the Dalmases were in charge of managing these entities. This is why he denied that these cooperating entities acted as “public money launderers for the independence process or to finance Convergnasia”, a party to which Terradales belonged until 2016.
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