A head of the Mossos who supported 1-O, arrested drunk after a chase through Hospitalet
A few minutes after 0:00 on October 12, a spectacular chase through the streets of Hospitalet de Llobregat ended with the crossing of two Urban Guard patrols from this town and the arrest of the driver of the vehicle.. A few minutes before, a patrol wanted to stop the vehicle to identify its driver for the suspicious driving he was doing, but the vehicle fled.. After colliding with two motorcycles, fortunately without causing fatalities, two police cars were finally able to block his path on Jacint Verdaguer Street, in the Santa Eulàlia neighborhood..
The municipal report records the incident, highlighting that the car collided with two motorcycles and that the driver tested positive for blood alcohol, so proceedings were opened for a crime against road safety.. What caught the most attention, however, was that the driver got out of the vehicle and, with a cocky attitude, displayed a police badge, identifying himself as a sub-inspector of the Mossos.. This did not free him from the proceedings, but it shocked the local police..
The perpetrator of the incident had been, in fact, a sub-inspector of the Catalan Regional Police and, in addition, in command of the feared Internal Affairs Division (DAI).. It was Jaume Monterde, a well-known agent in the force due to his position in that group, a specialist in persecuting his colleagues..
A former colleague of his tells El Confidencial that Monterde “made a big mess with some atrocities he did in 2017.”. At that time, he had already left the DAI and had been transferred to a position consistent with his rank in Hospitalet, as head of the Citizen Security Unit.”. Jaume's performance in Hospitalet did not leave anyone indifferent. Considered a man in the circle of the then head of the Mossos, Josep Lluís Trapero, the sub-inspector never hid his sympathies for Convergència or his affiliations with the independence movement..
According to those who know him, he used to spit on the Spanish flag pole when he arrived at the police station.. It is also said that he forced his subordinates to speak to him in Catalan under the cover that he did not understand Spanish.. But his stellar performance occurred during the celebration of the illegal referendum in October 2017: after the consultation, a group of agents denounced him and the chief investigative sub-inspector for allowing the referendum to be held and referring in an insulting manner to Spain and its government.
A confiscated urn… for himself
Both police commanders, according to the complaint that reached the Prosecutor's Office, shared “a fanatical ideological affiliation incompatible with the performance of a public job and even less with the characteristics of armed police units in judicial police work.”. On that day, an agent who was asked to support the State Security Forces and Corps and remove ballot boxes from the schools, as the judges had ordered, was sent to serve in the dungeons.. They also highlighted in their complaint that on October 1, the sub-inspector “appropriated one of the seized urns, taking it to his home with the comment that 'this will be worth money in the future' and inviting another sergeant to take another one, to which “He agreed verbally”.
On that day, when they asked him for help to support the members of the National Police Corps who had appeared at the Vilumara institute, where a polling station was established, he described the agents of the other police force as “sons of the big whore.”. One of the police officers from the police station present on that occasion tells El Confidencial that “a colleague who was present and whose father is a national police officer wanted to go after him.”. 'I'm going to rip off your head,' he said as he jumped on top of him.. “We had to hold him together because he wanted to crush him.”.
In the briefings that the police stations hold early in the morning to discuss and distribute services, Monterde often appeared with protest t-shirts, “even anti-system or with pro-independence proclamations, without caring what the police station staff might think.”. His second in Citizen Security, Sergeant Josep Lluís Vidal, with whom he had coincided in the DAI, appeared in the 1-O videos collaborating with the electoral colleges instead of requisitioning ballot boxes, as the judges had ordered.. The police leadership of the police station was 100% pro-independence, from the hard wing. On the day of the referendum, for example, the vast majority of the riot police had been given a holiday or days on personal business, meaning there were not enough forces to support the other police forces in the event of a riot..
After the events of 1-O, several files were opened against him and the police leadership began to fall into disgrace. Given that and the possibility that the National Police would open an investigation with the 1-O communications through the stations, in which he described the national police as “sons of bitches” and where it was prohibited to remove ballot boxes, he took the leave. medical and left the body, so he lost his status as a mosso. “He retained, however, the position of civil servant, although no longer as an agent. Some time later, he asked to be reinstated in the force, but not as a police officer.. After that request, they put him back into the DAI, this time as technical-administrative staff,” say sources who know him..
The silence of the controls
The event that occurred on October 12 revealed something else: apparently, the police badge he was wearing had been lost.. “The members of the DAI know very well what happens when someone loses their license plate or it is stolen.. “We are used to sanctions for losing a license plate, because those from the DAI have no regard,” says another police officer to this newspaper.. Furthermore, they point out that those who had it worst were the constitutionalist police forces.. “The DAI was going to crush whoever was interested,” says another source.. There are those who went to testify during the process only because of their constitutionalist positions. In some areas of the force, hyper-independence attitudes were the order of the day, the pressures were suffocating and they did not forgive those who were in favor of the Constitution and legality.”.
The fact that the badge miraculously appeared in the hand of the former sub-inspector after the escape from the local police could put him in a bind.. “The Municipal Police does not have to know if the license plate was lost or not.”. When the agents saw that it was a mosso, they consulted the regional police force about the situation, but they were not given information.. “We don't know if it's because he has protection from high places or because he is shielded due to his independence status.”.
Official sources from the Ministry of the Interior consulted by El Confidencial declined to give their version of the events and even say if they had opened any file for the incident or if they had taken any action in this regard.. According to some of his colleagues, the story of that night reveals a long string of crimes that would stain the service record of any agent for life, including impersonating a sub-inspector, omission of the duty to provide aid, reckless driving, fleeing from agents police… and the issue of the license plate. “What we have certified is that he wore the badge and flaunted it as if he were a sub-inspector when in reality he is no longer one,” say municipal sources close to the case.. Because if the plate had been given up as lost, what was it doing in his hand that night? The Ministry of the Interior, therefore, maintains a stony silence. The once powerful command has today become a Chinese woman in the shoe of Minister Joan Ignasi Elena. And still no one has given explanations.