The refusal of Interior to recognize as victims of terrorism two police officers injured in the Tsunami Democràtic riots ends up in the Audiencia Nacional

Two agents of the Policía Nacional injured during the disturbances linked to Tsunami Democràtic in Urquinaona square in Barcelona have taken the Ministerio del Interior before the Audiencia Nacional after they were denied recognition as victims of terrorism. Both officials suffered serious injuries during the altercations recorded in October 2019, on a night marked by violent clashes, throwing of cobblestones, Molotov cocktails and blunt objects against security forces.

One of the police officers was permanently incapacitated after suffering an open fracture in the arm due to the impact of a cobblestone thrown from a height, while the second one suffers from psychological sequelae and post-traumatic stress since that intervention. The defense of the agents, exercised by Fuster-Fabra Abogados and Statera Legal, has filed an administrative contentious appeal against the resolution of the Ministerio del Interior and against the decision of the Dirección General de Apoyo a Víctimas del Terrorismo, which refused to grant them that legal status.

However, the procedure faces a significant judicial obstacle: both the Tribunal Supremo and the Audiencia Nacional itself filed away the case related to Tsunami Democràtic upon finding procedural nullity in the investigation. The judicial resolutions rendered ineffective the terrorist thesis that magistrate Manuel García Castellón promoted at the time, therefore legally there currently does not exist an open case that defines the independence platform as a terrorist organization.

The file arrived after it was considered that the investigating judge extended the investigation out of time, an action that invalidated part of the procedure and caused the closure of the case without entering into the criminal merits of the facts. Precisely for this reason, various legal voices consider it complicated to maintain now that the agents can be officially recognized as victims of terrorism, as there is no firm resolution that classifies those disturbances under that crime.

Even so, the legal representation of the police officers maintains that the appeal seeks to review if the Administration's action conformed to law and defends that the violence suffered by the agents during the protests fits into the cases foreseen in the legislation on victims of terrorism.