In the end, Carles Puigdemont’s lawyer, Gonzalo Boye, will have to sit on the same bench as the drug kingpin Miñanco site and thirty of his collaborators. The Appeals Chamber of the National Court has rejected the appeal in which Boye maintained the lack of jurisdiction of this court to try him for money laundering linked to José Ramón Prado Bugallo.
Boye is the ex’s lawyer president Catalan, whose interests he has defended before the court of the UE and in several European countries since Puigdemont fled Spain. Currently, the lawyer participates in the negotiations to draft an amnesty law that meets the demands of the former president and allow the investiture of Pedro Sánchez as President of the Government.
The accusation against Boye in Operation Mito is linked to Sito Miñanco’s alleged attempt to introduce almost four tons of cocaine into Spain. The Prosecutor’s Office requests nine years and nine months in prison for the lawyer. The Prosecutor’s Office requests nine years and nine months in prison for the lawyer.
In an order, the Appeals Chamber confirms the refusal that had already been given by the Third Section of the Criminal Chamber, which maintained the jurisdiction of the Court to hold the trial. The magistrates explain that, although the law does not contemplate the jurisdiction of the Court for money laundering crimes, it does establish it when there is a connection with other crimes whose investigation is attributed to this court.
The resolution indicates that, as the Anti-Drug Prosecutor’s Office states in its indictment, the operations carried out by Boye are actions “directed” by Miñanco site to recover 887,000 euros intervened at the Barajas airport on February 6, 2017. Boye would have received 10,000 euros for these efforts.