Judge Joaquín Aguirre shelves the investigation into Josep Lluís Alay for the alleged Russian pro-independence conspiracy

The judge of the First Examining Magistrate’s Court of Barcelona who is investigating the Volhov Case, Joaquín Aguirre, decrees the provisional dismissal and shelving of the investigation against Josep Lluís Alay, the head of the office of President Puigdemont, for the allegedly purchasing oil. He was being investigated following a conversation that had been intercepted on his mobile phone in 2020, as part of Operation Volhov, with Alexander Dmitrenko, a Russian businessman whom Alay congratulated on the sale of Russian liquefied gas to a Chinese company, which in the end did not happen. The judge considered Dmitrenko to be the Russian link to the government, but eventually concluded that there is no solid evidence to believe in the existence of signs of criminal activity in the oil trading operation in which Alay and Dmitrenko allegedly participated. The Prosecutor’s Office had previously already requested its shelving.