Spanish police official steps down after insults to Catalan politicians revealed

The Spanish police head in Navarra, some 300 km west of Catalonia, has stepped down some hours after some reports revealed a secret Twitter account of him in which he insulted Catalan politicians, as well as others. 

The officer, Daniel Rodríguez López, had called the Barcelona mayor, Ada Colau, “functionally illiterate” and “disgusting.”

He had also written that one pro-independence Esquerra Republicana party MP, Gabriel Rufián, was a "pathologically stupid” and added he hoped he would attend the Pamplona (Navarra) San Fermín celebration, and be charged by a bull.

Some other comments revealed by eldiario.es Spanish digital newspaper included insults against some left-wing Podemos members and praises to the far-right Vox party.

López said that its leader is set to be key in the future to face nationalist and left-wing forces – and compared him with José Antonio Primo de Rivera, the founder of a fascist party in the 1930s, the only one legal during Francisco Franco’s dictatorship. “Do not let us down,” he urged to Vox’s leader.

In another tweet, he supported the military who performed a failed coup d’état in Spain in 1981. “What shitty country repudiates a soldier and civil guard officer who is able to put his life and honor at Spain’s service?” he asked.