A month after the adoption of the amnesty law for Catalan independence supporters, the Spanish justice system has ruled on the emblematic case of Carles Puigdemont, to whom it refuses to apply the measure, maintaining the arrest warrant targeting the leader exiled in Belgium.
Judge Pablo Llarena of the Supreme Court, “issued a judgment today (Monday) in which it declares the amnesty not applicable to the crime of embezzlement in the case against the former president of the Catalan Generalitat Carles Puigdemont“, the country’s highest judicial authority said.
The arrest warrant targeting the president of the Catalan regional government since the attempted secession of Catalonia in 2017 therefore remains in force, the court specifies in its decision, which can be appealed within three days of notification to the parties.
The Supreme Court’s ruling came as a bolt from the blue, as the amnesty law was primarily intended to affect Carles Puigdemont, who had hoped to be able to return to Spain quickly.
Charged with embezzlement, disobedience and terrorism and subject to an arrest warrant since the events of 2017, Mr Puigdemont had left for Belgium, where he still lives, to flee prosecution by the Spanish justice system, while other separatist leaders had been imprisoned.
Judge Llarena considered that the amnesty law did apply to the crime of disobedience, but that on the other hand, “behaviors“accused of Mr. Puigdemont and two other independentists”fully correspond to the two exceptions provided for by the law” with regard to the offence of embezzlement.
Specifically, the magistrate concluded that there had been an intention on the part of Mr Puigdemont to obtain a personal benefit, with an impact on the financial interests of the European Union, which makes the amnesty inapplicable in his eyes.
Therefore, the arrest warrant “is maintained only for the crime of embezzlement, not for that of disobedience“, according to the document.
The crime of terrorism, with which Mr Puigdemont is also accused in a separate case, is not addressed in this judgment.
A few minutes after the Supreme Court’s announcement, Carles Puigdemont reacted on the social network “X” with a sibylline message (“La Toga nostra”) that seemed to compare the judges and their robes to the Sicilian mafia Cosa nostra.
Case by case
On May 30, the Spanish parliament passed an amnesty law for Catalan independence supporters, a price that Socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez had to pay to be returned to power in November thanks to the support of the two Catalan independence parties, which demanded this measure in return.
Since then, the right-wing and far-right opposition have been up in arms against this law, according to her.unconstitutional“, and against which she has organized numerous demonstrations.
The lawmakers’ goal was for the courts to begin immediately canceling arrest warrants for separatists who fled abroad, and for those cancellations to remain valid pending the review of appeals filed against the law, which could take months or even years.
But with more than 400 people facing prosecution or conviction for crimes related to Catalonia’s 2017 independence bid or events leading up to or following it, the task is daunting for the courts, which must decide on a case-by-case basis.
The magistrates – many of whom do not hide their reluctance or even their frank opposition to this measure which has dominated and radicalized Spanish political life since the elections of July 2023 – had two months, from the end of May, to implement it.
Last week, two people, a former member of the Catalan regional government and a police officer, became the first beneficiaries of the law and were granted amnesty.
For Pedro Sánchez, who was opposed to it in the past, this amnesty aims to put an end to the instability born from the attempted secession of 2017, one of the worst crises experienced by Spain since its return to democracy after the end of the Franco dictatorship in 1975.
Spain Carles Puidgemont Catalonia arrest warrant
