– Justice refuses to grant amnesty to independence leader Carles Puigdemont
The High Court maintains the arrest warrant against the Catalan, because the crime of embezzlement, of which he is accused, remains outside the amnesty.
Published today at 1:57 p.m.
The former president of the Catalan Generalitat Carles Puigdemont.
AFP/Josep LAGO
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The Spanish Supreme Court, the country’s highest judicial body, refused to grant amnesty to independence leader Carles Puigdemont, in exile since Catalonia’s failed secession attempt in 2017, and maintained the arrest warrant targeting him.
Judge Pablo LLaena “issued a ruling today (Monday) in which he declared the amnesty not applicable to the crime of embezzlement in the case against the former president of the Catalan Generalitat Carles Puigdemont,” the court said in its decision, made public on Monday, specifying that the arrest warrant against him therefore remained in force.
This decision may be appealed within three days of notification to the parties, the document states.
Amnesty Law
On May 30, the Spanish parliament adopted an amnesty law for Catalan separatists, the 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 separatist parties, which demanded this measure in return. The law was promulgated on June 11.
The aim of the legislators was that the courts would immediately begin to cancel the arrest warrants targeting the separatists who had fled abroad and that these cancellations would remain valid pending the examination of the appeals filed against the law, a process 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.
This law was intended to allow the return of the independentists still in exile, first and foremost Carles Puigdemont, president of the Catalan regional government during the events of 2017, who has since lived in exile in Belgium to escape legal proceedings.
Two exceptions in the amnesty law
Charged with embezzlement, disobedience and terrorism, Mr Puigdemont, who has been the subject of an arrest warrant since the events of 2017, hoped to be able to return to Spain quickly after the law was promulgated.
Judge LLarena considered that the amnesty law did indeed apply to the offense of disobedience, but that on the other hand, “the behavior” accused of Mr. Puigdemont and two other separatists “fully corresponds to the two exceptions provided for by the law » with regard to the offense of embezzlement.
Specifically, the magistrate concluded that there was a desire on the part of Mr Puigdemont to obtain personal benefit, as well as 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.
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