The commission of the Congress established in February 2024 to clarify the jihadist attacks perpetrated in Catalonia in August 2017 holds a new session this Tuesday with the objective of agreeing on and submitting to a vote its final report, after an investigation that has lasted two and a half years.
A few weeks ago, the different parliamentary groups registered their draft conclusions, which are the texts that will now be voted on. If any of them achieve sufficient support, it will become a report and will be sent to the Plenary Session of the Chamber for final validation.
Junts and ERC demand that Congress recognize "negligence" by the State in the prevention of the attacks, a position that PSOE, PP, and Vox reject, according to the proposed conclusions to which Europa Press has had access.
In the case of Junts, the group attributes "a part of the responsibility" for the attacks to "negligence or recklessness by the secret services" for having hidden the links of the National Intelligence Center (CNI) with Abdelbaki Es-Satty, the imam of Ripoll (Girona) identified as the mastermind of the cell.
Junts questions the trial and the role of the CNI
According to Junts' text, these contacts would have been kept hidden "by political decision," recalling that the attacks occurred a few weeks before the October 1st referendum and that the "political and partisan interests" of the PP government were prioritized "over innocent victims who had the right to know the whole truth of what had just happened."
The pro-independence party assumes the version defended at the time by commissioner José Manuel Villarejo, according to which the CNI "lost control" of its relationship with the imam of Ripoll. In this context, it points to both the leadership of the Ministry of the Interior, then headed by the 'popular' José Ignacio Zoido, and the political head of the intelligence services, the first vice president Soraya Sáenz de Santamaría, and extends its reproaches to the current coalition government for considering that all relevant documentation has not been declassified.
Junts even goes so far as to question whether the imam of Ripoll died in the previous explosion in Alcanar (Tarragona) and maintains that the judicial case did not clear up all the "essential questions" about the "origin, preparation, and possible responsibilities of the events." Therefore, it requests that the Prosecutor's Office promote new judicial proceedings.
Sumar, for its part, proposes in its conclusions that the State Attorney General's Office study the opening of pre-trial investigation proceedings "as an exceptional mechanism for satisfying the right to truth." The plurinational group also advocates for "promoting the development of a public, official, institutional, and rigorous account" of the attacks "as a condition for collective emotional closure, the dignification of victims, and the prevention of conspiracy narratives."
ERC speaks of "serious institutional failure"
ERC maintains that the State "failed in prevention" and alludes to "possible negligence in the management of information" that the CNI and Mossos had about Es Satty, although without going as far as Junts. "Without stating that state services previously knew about the specific preparation of the attacks, the commission considers that there are indications to appreciate allegedly negligent action," its text states.
Esquerra emphasizes that "the lack of transmission of information to the Mossos d'Esquadra before the events constitutes a central element of possible institutional negligence and evidences a failure in the standards of coordination, institutional loyalty, and prevention that must govern the actions of public authorities in the face of terrorist threats," and describes this "serious institutional failure" as a reason to assign political responsibilities and undertake structural reforms to prevent the repetition of a similar scenario.
Junts, ERC, and Sumar also agree in demanding the full declassification of documentation related to the attacks, a request that neither the PSOE nor the PP share.
Counter-terrorism coordination and the role of security forces
In general terms, all the parties that have registered conclusions highlight the need to strengthen coordination between the Security Forces and Corps and intelligence services in counter-terrorism matters, as well as to improve the shared use of databases. The PSOE, however, insists that in recent years progress has already been made in this direction that must be deepened.
The socialists highlight the "responsibility" and "effectiveness" of the actions of the Mossos and defend that the relationship between the different police forces and the CNI "should continue to be based on the principle of mutual loyalty". Furthermore, they advocate for "formalizing international alert channels on people or risk environments" and reinforcing coordination between Penitentiary Institutions and Security Forces to detect radicalization processes within prisons.
Sumar also underlines that the current level of coordination between security forces is much higher than in 2017, "which shows that improvements were possible and necessary," and calls for continued progress in that direction.
In the section dedicated to victims, the PSOE acknowledges that the coexistence of judicial, health, and police information sources has caused "practical difficulties" in identifying them exhaustively. Therefore, it proposes "improving coordination and registration systems" and reforming the Law on Victims of Terrorism to include a "broader, more inclusive, and material definition of a victim of terrorism, expanding their recognition, assistance, and protection."
The PP, on the other hand, admits that the radicalization of the perpetrators and the planning of the thwarted attack due to the explosion of the house in Alcanar, "as happens in many cases where small and isolated cells operate, went unnoticed by all State Security Forces and Corps with competencies in organized crime and terrorism," including the CNI and CITCO. However, it emphasizes that "in no case can it be claimed that it was an act of negligence."
The popular party wants to make it clear that the imam of Ripoll "was not a confidant or collaborator" of the CNI, the Police, or the Civil Guard and that the CNI "had not the slightest responsibility" for the attacks, just as "the Mossos d'Esquadra, the National Police Corps, or the Civil Guard did not."
The PP also seeks to record the "partisan use of information" by the then Catalan president, Carles Puigdemont, who denied that the Mossos had received the alert issued in May 2017 by the CIA about a possible attack on Las Ramblas, despite it later being proven that it had been transmitted.
Disagreements on the usefulness of the commission
The popular ones also emphasize that, despite the level 4 anti-terrorist alert and that the Police had proposed for Christmas 2017 the installation of physical protection elements in very crowded areas, that measure was not applied in Barcelona.
Vox, in a similar vein to the PP, recalls that the parliamentary commission was constituted at the request of Junts and ERC and concludes that its work has not provided any new information nor has it allowed to accredit "any of the serious suspicions that justified its impulse".
"On the contrary, its work has served to confirm the solidity of the police and judicial investigations carried out at the time and to demonstrate the lack of foundation of many of the accusations that for years have been made from certain political spheres," maintains the document registered by Vox.