Catalan separatist refuses to answer accusers at trial
MADRID: The lead defendant in a rebellion case against Catalan separatist leaders refused to answer prosecutors’ questions as he took the stand Thursday at Spain’s most politically explosive trial in decades.
Former regional vice-president Oriol Junqueras, 49, is one of 12 separatists on trial over their 2017 independence bid.
Nine of them are accused of rebellion and three face lesser charges of disobedience and misuse of public funds.
Junqueras rejected the charges and branded the case politically motivated.
“I consider myself to be a political prisoner,” Junqueras told the panel of seven judges as he took the stand for the first time at Spain’s Supreme Court in Madrid.
“I am being prosecuted for my ideas and not for my actions... I will not answer questions from the accusers.”
Junqueras faces 25 years behind bars if he is convicted of rebellion and misuse of public funds for pushing an independence referendum in October 2017 in defiance of a court ban.
The referendum was followed by a declaration of independence by leaders in the northeastern region.
The move sparked Spain’s deepest political crisis since its transition to democracy in the
I consider myself to be a political prisoner. I am being prosecuted for my ideas and not for my actions ... I will not answer questions from the accusers.
1970s.
Junqueras is the first of the 12 defendants to testify in the trial, which started on Tuesday.
He has been held in pre-trial detention for more than a year.
“Nothing we did is a crime, nothing, absolutely nothing. Voting in a referendum is not a crime,” he said.
“Working peacefully for independence is not a crime. We have not committed a single one of the crimes we are accused of.”
The 11 others accused in the trial include members of Catalonia’s former executive, the two leaders of the powerful pro-independence associations ANC and Omnium Cultural, and the former president of the Catalan parliament. They face jail terms of seven to 17 years. — AFP
Oriol Junqueras, former regional vice-president