Transparency asks Defense to disclose a report in opposition to a basic who instructed a army intervention in Catalonia


José Mena warned in 2006 of a attainable intervention by the Army within the occasion that the Statute of Catalonia surpassed the Constitution Former basic Félix Sanz Roldán beneficial his dismissal for the statements made on the Military Easter celebration in 2006 Former Defense Minister, José Bono, quoted the officer the following day in his workplace to inform him of his dismissal and eight days of home arrest

The Transparency Council has urged the Ministry of Defense to make public the report drawn up by the Chief of Defense Staff (JEMAD) in 2006, General Félix Sanz Roldán, recommending the dismissal of a lieutenant basic who had warned of a attainable intervention of the Army within the occasion that the Statute of Catalonia surpasses the Constitution.

The information return to the celebration of Military Easter in 2006, when Lieutenant General José Mena, then head of the Army Land Force, gave a speech on the General Captaincy of Seville warning that if “the impassable limits” that mark the Constitution have been exceeded by some autonomous Statute, “the eighth article of the Constitution could be relevant”, which regulates the actions of the Armed Forces.

These phrases motivated a report written by the then JEMAD, Félix Sanz Roldán, later director of the National Intelligence Center (CNI). In it, he proposed to the Minister of Defense, José Bono, the dismissal of the lieutenant basic for his phrases at Military Easter. Bono summoned the officer the following day in his workplace to tell him of his dismissal and eight days of home arrest.

Defense alleges that it doesn’t have it

Nine years later, the Transparency Council -in a decision to which Europa Press has had access- urges the Defense to make public the report written by Sanz Roldán, after the Defense General Staff alleged that the doc didn’t It is in your recordsdata.

In response to a citizen’s request to acquire this info, the Defense Staff responded to Transparency that it didn’t have the report in its administration recordsdata since they “solely maintain the documentation in course of or topic to steady use and administrative session by way of the identical workplaces. And it claimed that it was not included in its central file both, the place a search was carried out “with out stated report being present in it.”

But as well as, EMAD argued that the administration of army archives is regulated by the royal decree that regulates the Military Archives Regulations, “a rule that gives for a selected regime of entry to the data saved in them.”

However, the Transparency Council has accepted the declare of the data claimant, who insisted that the report needs to be supplied by the Ministry of Defense, recipient of the identical, and never by EMAD.

The particulars, within the Bono file

The proof that this doc was acquired on the Ministry is that the then minister, José Bono, included it in his private file, as revealed by Voz Pópuli, which ensures that Sanz Roldán carried out a extra exhaustive investigation to seek out out if the Army supported the theses. of General Mena.

“José Mena Aguado was the primary lieutenant basic arrested for the reason that Civil War. On Military Easter Day, in Seville, he gave a speech launching a public volley in opposition to the Statute of Autonomy of Catalonia. The soldier obtained confused. He crossed a border that in Democracy can’t transcend the army. Action needed to be taken and motion was taken,” Bono himself justifies on the web site that features his legacy.

Among the paperwork, Bono publishes the whole report that Sanz Roldán despatched him after acquiring the opinion of generals, officers and non-commissioned officers of the Armed Forces. In it, the then JEMAD identified that General Mena’s phrases had been “premature, inconvenient and divisive.”

“Returning to a state of affairs of declarations of such a marked political nature, which places the Army in conditions already surpassed, will not be justified by anybody,” maintained Sanz Roldán, who added that the army usually rejected a discourse of such marked “partiality and lack of of political neutrality”.