Marchena refuses to confront Pérez de los Cobos and Ferran López

The presiding magistrate of the Court where the pro-independence leaders are on trial, Manuel Marchena, refused to confront the police coordinator on 1-O, Diego Pérez de los Cobos, and Mossos inspector Ferran López, on Tuesday.

Marchena refused it by stating that the Court would take any contradictions there were between the statements of these two witnesses into account:
 

"The Court rejects the relevance and the need for this confrontation, and it does so, basically, starting from the idea that the configuration of the confrontation itself -rather than as a means to assess other true sources of evidence, which are these testimonies, their exceptional meaning, and even the fact that the jurisprudence of this court does not even accept appeals for reversal for confrontations - is already indicative of the fact that these contradictions, if they are detected in the weighing of the evidence, will simply be the object of assessment in accordance with the requirements of Criminal Proceedings Law, article 741, with regard to the assessment of evidence."

"Contradictions have likewise been found in a great many testimonies, both from the parties to the prosecution and to the defence, and the question is, basically, to submit these analyses or these statements to general rules for the weighing of evidence."

The confrontation was requested by Xavier Melero, the defence counsel of Joaquim Forn, in the sitting on 3 March, after López gave statement in the trial.

The argument put forward by Melero was that it was necessary to clarify the many contradictions between the statements of López and of Pérez de los Cobos with regard to the police operation on 1-O.

Marchena then said he would adjourn the decision, which he finally notified on Tuesday, during the documentary evidence phase.

Accepted and rejected documents

This was the first decision of the court made public by Marchena on Tuesday morning, and he added that they were all adopted unanimously.

After that, he went over the remaining decisions that were adopted with regard to the doubts, claims and challenges stated during Monday's sitting, when the documentary evidence phase of the public hearing began.

With regard to the evidence requested by the parties to the defence, Marchena stated that he had accepted all of them.

The Court refuses police reports

With regard to the ones requested by the accusations, the Court refused the police report on the famous Moleskine agenda of Josep Maria Jové by arguing that it is an appreciatory report.

On the other hand, it did accept the transcript of the contents of this agenda. It did the same with the Enfocats document: it accepted the transcript but not the police report.

With regard to another police report drafted by the Guardia Civil on alleged humiliation of its officers on 1-O, it also deemed it to be appreciatory and refused it. 

With regard to these events, the Court will only take into account the statements of witnesses.

The State Attorney General maintains charges of rebellion

Beyond the sitting, on Tuesday several sources have assured that the State Attorney General would maintain the charge of rebellion in the final conclusions.

If this information, which is said to come from sources within the State Attorney General's Office itself, is confirmed, it would not add the option to reduce it to conspiracy to rebel.

The final report of the State Attorney General's Office, which will ultimately set the decision in stone, will be made public on Monday next week.

Related interactive resource: The keys of the Catalan independence trial