The Court of Auditors dismissed the appeal with which they intended to halve that amount, which is added to the 4.9 million that they had to repay for the public money diverted from the Generalitat
The former president of the Generalitat Artur Mas, his then Presidency counselor and spokesman, Francesc Homs, and eight other former senior officials of the Catalan Executive will finally have to pay one million euros in interest for the 4.9 million euros of public money that they diverted to finance the illegal consultation that took place on November 9, 2014, known as 9-N. The Court of Accounts (Tcu) has dismissed the appeal led by Homs, with which he and other convicts have tried to halve the amount to be paid for interest.

It was the prelude, as a test, to the referendum and subsequent declaration of independence that took place on October 1, 2017, already with Carles Puigdemont as president of the Generalitat.

For 9-N, Artur Mas, Francesc Homs, the then Vice President and Minister of the Interior of the Catalan Executive, Joana Ortega, as well as the person in charge of the Ministry of Education, Irene Rigau, were prosecuted and sentenced in the Court of Accounts. and six other senior officials of the Generalitat.

Diverted public funds
It was determined that they had illegally diverted 4.9 million euros for the organization and holding of that sovereignist consultation. And, the Court of Accounts estimated interest at one million euros, calculated by the time elapsed since the diversion of public money occurred and until the culprits repaid it to the Generalitat.

Those sentenced have been trying for some time, without success, for those interests that they must face in solidarity to be reduced by half. Homs has led the strategy, arguing that the interest meter should have stopped when the defendants attended the preventive consignment of funds that the court required of them, something that occurred between November 2017 and July 2019.

This argument from Homs was already rejected months ago, when the TCu dismissed the appeal that it filed on July 28, 2022. Faced with the setback, it tried again with this appeal, which this Monday was resolved by the Chamber of Justice of the Court of Auditors, which has once again dismissed the arguments of Homs and the other convicts who have adhered to this strategy.

Thus, the liquidation of interest that was carried out against them by ordering procedure of October 27, 2021 is reconfirmed. In it, in addition to the 4.9 million that they had to return to the Generalitat, the interest was estimated at around of one million euros, compared to less than 600,000 euros to which the condemned aspired.