December 21, 2018. Hundreds of pro-independentists gather around the Llotja de Mar to protest against the Council of Ministers, which is meeting in Barcelona. Among them, Brian B., for whom the Prosecutor’s Office requested six years in prison for disorderly conduct and attack on authority, for having kicked a Mosso d’esquadra. Finally, the Barcelona Court has acquitted him considering that, despite participating in the concentration, it was not he who attacked the policeman.
In a ruling, dated May 16, the 6th Section points out that Brian B. was not the one who hit the cash in the elbow, nor that he snatched “with both hands and violently” the baton he was carrying.
The court also rejects that the defendant moved the fences of the security cordon that the Mossos had deployed and that he threw stones or glass against the police line, in via Laietana.
According to the sentence, the protester went towards one of the agents “with both hands, pushing”, but the policeman himself pointed out during the trial that he did not remember if the accused had kicked him in the elbow. He also could not ensure that he had launched against the line and it has not been accredited, the judges indicate, that he attacked the fences behind which the Mossos were.
For all these reasons, the Court has acquitted Brian B., although an appeal can be filed against the ruling before the Superior Court of Justice of Catalonia (TSJC). The same activist already has a sentence of one and a half years in prison for kicking a Mosso during the Tsunami Democràtic protest in front of the Camp Nou in December 2019.
The 7th Chamber of the Provincial Court considered proven in a ruling from last March that the man assaulted a policeman, although he was acquitted of the crime of public disorder, of which he was also accused.
The sentence, against which there is also an appeal, indicates that Brian B. was part of the pro-independence mobilization around the stadium, where Barça-Madrid was played. There, at a time when several demonstrators began to throw bottles and other objects at the riot police, he “pounced” on one of them, “delivering a strong kick to the lower back.”
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