Day 15 witnesses deny getting payment for referendum-related work
Printing firm employees tell court they had no knowledge of who ordered material for the vote and that no money changed hands
"I never saw the material, it was sealed," Rosa María Sans, from the Artyplan graphic design company, told the Supreme Court on Tuesday, as the trial of Catalan leaders continued with testimony from firms hired to produce material for the 2017 independence referendum.
In the shortest court session so far, Sans, who was head of HR at the firm, confirmed that the company received orders to produce material for the vote, but she added that she did not know "where the orders came from."
She also said that even though the company she worked for allegedly printed the material, which was seized by Spanish police in raids of the firm, the first she saw of it was later in the media, not in the company itself.
Sans explained that it turned out that the billing for the material was for the pro-independence organization Òmnium Cultural, which she described as a "client of many years," but who in this case did not pay anything to the company.
🔴 Rosa María Sans says the pro-independence organization Òmnium Cultural hired Artyplan to print referendum material, but never paid for it pic.twitter.com/ffjTGXpq6H
— Catalan News (@catalannews) March 12, 2019
Before Sans took the stand, the owner of the Buzoneo Directo company, José Oriol González, was due to give testimony, but he refused to declare as he is currently under investigation in a separate case.
Intermediary says he received no money
Taking the stand in the afternoon was Enric Vidal Famadas, a designer who allegedly acted as an intermediary between the Catalan government and the printing companies hired to produce material for the referendum.
Vidal told the court he was contacted by someone called "Toni," who asked him "to resize" the independence referendum poster, and to hire the firms Artyplan, Global Solution, and Marc Martí to print the referendum posters.
The designer said he didn’t know Antoni Molons, the Catalan government secretary for communications and media at the time of the referendum, and he did not confirm whether it was Molons who contacted him about printing the posters for the October 1 vote.
🔴 Enric Vidal says he didn’t know Antoni Molons, the Catalan government secretary for communications and media at the time of the referendum, and doesn’t confirm whether he was contacted by him to print the Oct 1 posters
— Catalan News (@catalannews) March 12, 2019
Learn more: https://t.co/yey0vNc5LT pic.twitter.com/5PZUwCCiAN
Vidal told the court that he didn’t earn any money for acting as an intermediary between the Catalan government and printing firms, that he didn't know "how much printing the posters cost," and did not even know that the order came from the Catalan government.
"I didn't know who to bill," says print firm salesman
Enric Marí, a salesman at the Artyplan printing firm, was next to testify, saying he got a phone call from the pro-independence Òmnium Cultural group requesting a quote to print the October 1 referendum posters.
According to the salesman, the cost for printing the referendum posters came to 17,250 euros, but that he didn’t know who was to be billed for printing the material.
Mary went on to say that Enric Vidal—the designer who testified in court before him—told him that the Catalan executive would pay for the referendum posters, and that he feared Spain’s Guardia Civil police would seize the posters.