2 days Ago By ARA
Another case of police infiltration in social and political movements in the Catalan Countries, and this makes six. The latest , published this Tuesday, reveals that a National Police officer spent two years infiltrated activism in Lleida, within the pro-independence left. Under the false identity of Joan Llobet Garcia, and having graduated from the Ávila Police Academy just a year before beginning the espionage operation, the officer landed in the capital of Segrià in September 2019 and left in November 2021.
During this time, he was actively involved in the SANT protests against the Proceso ruling (2019) and in support of the Lleida rapper Pablo Hasél. The entry channel for the infiltration, according to the La Directa report, was the La Baula Cooperative Athenaeum, where he went interested in the Onze de Setembre mobilizations. He settled in a rented apartment in Lleida and, using his fake ID, enrolled in the advanced training course in Environmental Education and Control at the Lleida School of Labor.
He also enrolled at the Club Uppercut Lleida gym, where he practiced kickboxing and muay thai. As early as October, he participated, through Lleida's youth committees, in the demonstrations in response to the Catalan government's condemnation of the October 1 referendum. "I'm absolutely sure he threw stones at the police and built barricades," a classmate of the infiltrator recalls in the report.
It was from that moment on that the agent began to develop his activism, first joining the SEPC and later joining Endavant. He also became involved with the housing movement, attended meetings of the Lleida PAH (National Human Rights Commission), and became interested in youth environmentalist activities through Extinction Rebellion. Already in early 2021, he participated in assemblies and rallies supporting Hasél, even staying overnight at the rectorate of the University of Lleida on February 16, 2021, when the Mossos d'Esquadra (Catalan police) entered to arrest the rapper.
Finally, he left Lleida in early November 2021, claiming that he had found work in Barcelona and that his grandmother's health, which he claimed lived in Esparreguera, had worsened. This argument, citing the health of a family member, has been common among the other officers discovered so far when they cut off their infiltration. However, in the case of Joan Llobet in the Catalan capital, he also contacted the pro-independence left, specifically the Casal La Cruïlla in Eixample, and eventually joined a November 25th action against gender-based violence.
After that day, the report notes, he never participated in activism again, disconnected his cell phone, and nothing more has been heard from him. According to La Directa, the agent was AGA (according to his initials). He was born in Teruel and is part of the 32nd class of the National Police Force, the same group as the agent who infiltrated the Pales movement between 2018 and 2020.
The anti-repression organization Alerta Solidaria announces that they will prepare a new complaint for the case of the infiltrator in Lleida. Until now, the cases brought to court have had no success, and the Prosecutor's Office has always rejected the idea that the infiltration and the methods of the discovered agents could constitute a crime..
