Spanish supreme court charges 13 Catalan leaders with rebellion

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/mar/23/jordi-turull-latest-candidate-catalan-presidency-appear-court-spain

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A Spanish supreme court judge has charged 13 senior Catalan leaders, including the region’s deposed president and the candidate chosen to succeed him, with rebellion over their roles in last year’s unilateral referendum and subsequent declaration of independence.

The charges, announced on Friday morning by Judge Pablo Llarena, carry a maximum sentence of 30 years’ imprisonment and were brought against both Carles Puigdemont, the former president now in exile in Belgium, and Jordi Turull, who faces a vote on Saturday to take up the post.

Llarena said Catalan separatist politicians and civil society groups had “colluded” for the past six years to draw up a plan for regional independence in defiance of Spain’s legal and constitutional order.

Among those also charged with the same offence are the former Catalan vice-president, Oriol Junqueras, the former speaker of the Catalan parliament, Carme Forcadell, and the senior civil society group figures Jordi Cuixart and Jordi Sànchez.

Marta Rovira, the general secretary of Junqueras’ Catalan Republican Left party, failed to appear in court Madrid, explaining in a letter that she was fleeing Spain. She was also charged with rebellion.

The judge ruled that a total of 25 Catalan leaders will be tried for rebellion, misuse of public funds or disobeying the state.

In a 70-page ruling, Llarena noted that from 2012 onwards, the Catalan government had been “drawing up a route map for Catalonia’s transition process towards becoming an independent country” and co-ordinating the campaign with Cuixart and Sànchez’s influential grassroots groups.

“Despite repeated warnings that these parliamentary initiatives were unconstitutional and invalid … and despite the suspension and invalidation of the referendum decrees, the executive organs of the Catalan government pressed on with a permanent and obsessive agenda,” said the judge.

Llarena also cast doubt on whether the former Catalan government had abandoned its independence drive, saying it appeared to be “latent and awaiting reactivation”.

The announcement of the charges followed Thursday night’s investiture debate in the Catalan parliament, in which Turull’s first attempt to be elected was scuppered by the region’s most hardline pro-independence party.

Turull, Puigdemont’s former chief of staff and the third candidate to be proposed for the presidency since the elections last December, failed to win the support of the regional parliament after the far-left, anti-capitalist Popular Unity Candidacy (Cup) announced that it would no longer work in coalition with the two larger pro-independence parties.

A second investiture debate is due to be held on Saturday morning.

The debate on Thursday has started the constitutional and electoral clock ticking. Parties have two months to propose and elect a presidential candidate. If none is successful within that time, fresh Catalan elections will be held in mid-July.

Catalonia has been under direct rule from Madrid since the end of October, when Spain’s prime minister, Mariano Rajoy, responded to the unilateral independence declaration by sacking Puigdemont and his government and calling snap elections.