On Friday The Mayor of Barcelona showed a certificate from Swiss
bank UBS proving he does not hold the bank account number published by
'El Mundo' and that he has never had any account with such a bank.
Therefore, the fiscal fraud accusations launched at him on Monday and on
Tuesday by the Madrid-based and Spanish nationalist newspaper are
false. For this reason, Trias is now demanding the resignation of the
Spanish Home Affair Minister, from the Catalan branch of the People's
Party (PP), for "leaking" information, which proved to be false, and for
"pressuring" media to publish it. According to Trias, "several
journalists" told him that the Spanish Ministry called them and asked
them to publish that the Mayor of Barcelona had €12.9 million in
Switzerland, insisting that the information was true.
"It is an attack against the Mayor of Barcelona", stated Trias. In
the last few months, Trias has been backing Catalonia's independence
from Spain and he has supported the Barcelona City Council in approving
motions in favour of Catalonia's right to self-determination and the
original consultation vote that was to take place on the 9th
of November. Two years ago, 'El Mundo' published another false
information about the Catalan President and CiU's main candidate for
reelection, Artur Mas, just 10 days before the election day, accusing
him of having hidden money in Switzerland.
Some journalist are speculating that somebody else called Xavier
Trias had such a bank account, since Trias is quite a common surname in
Catalonia. However in Spain people have two surnames and the Mayor of
Barcelona's second one is Vidal de Llobatera. 'El Mundo' did not say
what the second surname of the bank account holder was. However,
according to journalist sources, the Spanish Home Affair Ministry
insisted it was the Mayor of Barcelona and not somebody else. On top of
this, in the last few months, 'El Mundo' has published many scoops
accusing the governing People's Party of corruption and some journalist
say this episode could be some sort of revenge against the newspaper by
pushing them to publish fake information and launching false
accusations. In any case, UBS explicitly confirmed that Xavier Trias
Vidal de Llobatera has never had and does not have a bank account with
them.
