Prosecutor drops charges against Catalan health officials over COVID vaccine delay for national police

The trial's conclusion

After several years of proceedings, the trial in the sixth section of the Audiencia de Barcelona drew to a close this week. Prosecutor retracted her request for 12-year disqualification from public office against Vergés, her then-deputy Marc Ramentol, former public health secretary Josep Maria Argimon and former CatSalut director Adrià Comella. The decision came as the court asked parties to finalise their conclusions, following oral hearings that, according to eldiario.es, "deflated the accusatory theses". The prosecutor had originally sought the ban for the four officials on grounds of prevarication, but her withdrawal leaves only the popular accusations alive.

The defendants had consistently argued that the vaccination delay stemmed from technical and ethical criteria, not discrimination. The pause in immunisation with the AstraZeneca vaccine due to thrombosis risks, agreed by Spain's inter-territorial health council, was cited as a key reason for the slower rollout to state security forces in Catalonia.

The numbers behind the dispute

A central piece of evidence was the stark disparity in vaccination coverage by 24 March 2021. While 77% of the regional Mossos d'Esquadra, 68.9% of local police, 69.8% of firefighters and nearly 80% of Barcelona's urban guard had received a dose, only 3.6% of National Police and 2.8% of Guardia Civil agents in Catalonia were vaccinated. The defence maintained that this gap resulted from the two forces choosing a separate vaccination circuit (their own stations) and delays in providing their census data, not from any intent to discriminate.

The defendants' final words

In her last statement to the court, Vergés said she was "proud" of her team, who she insisted "responded like no one else, with a single objective: people's health. Nothing else." Comella, making use of his right to a final word, stressed that the department was guided solely by clinical and ethical principles.

Only clinical criteria and ethics inspire us, nothing else.

Ramentol echoed that line, telling the court that all actions were taken "exclusively" for health reasons and to "save lives". Testimony from National Police and Guardia Civil commanders who coordinated the vaccination campaign, as well as from the Government Delegation, described the relationship with the regional health department as correct and raised no objection to its handling of the process.

Police unions' anger

Despite the prosecutor's about-face, the main police union Jupol and the Guardia Civil association Jucil stood firm. They maintained their demand for 15-year disqualification for all five defendants (including former health services director Francesc Xavier Rodríguez, against whom the other associations had also dropped their complaint). Their lawyers called the prosecutor's move "profoundly shameful" and insisted that the legal fact of discrimination had already been established by the Superior Court of Justice of Catalonia and later the Supreme Court, both of which ruled that the Generalitat "violated the principle of equality" by prioritising other forces while thousands of state agents remained unprotected.

The prosecutor's decision does not alter a fact that has been judicially proven: the agents of the National Police and Guardia Civil stationed in Catalonia were discriminated against during the vaccination process.

Two other police associations, SPP and UOGCP, reduced their petition against the four senior officials to 12 years and dropped their accusation against Rodríguez entirely.

What happens next

The trial is now seen for sentencing. The judges of the sixth section of the Audiencia de Barcelona must weigh the remaining popular accusations, which rest on the same inequality argument already partly endorsed by higher courts. A verdict could take weeks or months. For the former health leadership, the collapse of the prosecutor's case removes the most serious criminal threat, although the symbolic and political shadow of the case persists.