Spain detains Catalan leader
Supreme Court also charges 13 others with rebellion
Supreme Court also charges 13 others with rebellion.
MADRID: Catalan presidential candidate Jordi Turull was placed in pre-trial detention on charges of rebellion and sedition, a day ahead of a planned parliamentary vote.
The decision by the Spanish Supreme Court on Friday ends the 51-year-old former government spokesman’s chances of becoming regional president, as the court previously ruled that a candidate must be physically present in the chamber to be elected.
Catalan separatists had hoped to get ahead of the Spanish judiciary by electing Turull in a surprise emergency session of parliament on Thursday night, but they failed to get a majority of votes.
The court issued fresh arrest warrants against former Catalan president Carles Puigdemont and six other Catalan politicians who currently are abroad.
The court charged Puigdemont and 12 others with the crime of rebellion earlier on Friday for backing of the region’s bid to secede from Spain in October last year.
The move brings Puigdemont, who has fled to Belgium, and his allies one step closer to a trial in which they would face up to 30 years’ imprisonment if convicted.
The ruling also covered Puigdemont’s former deputy Oriol Junqueras; pro-independence civil society campaigners Jordi Sanchez and Jordi Cuixart; and former Catalan interior minister Joaquim Forn.
The four have been in pre-trial detention for months. Indictments were also issued for the former speaker of the Catalan parliament, Carme Forcadell, and Marta Rovira of the far-left ERC party, who dodged a court summons and announced she was going into exile. Catalonia catapulted Spain into an unprecedented constitutional crisis when it held a referendum on independence in October. Then regional president Puigdemont was deposed by the Madrid government after organising the vote, which was boycotted by many pro-union residents but yielded a majority – more than 90% of ballots cast – favouring a divorce from Madrid.
The El Mundo newspaper sharply criticised the separatists, charging that they were holding Catalonia hostage “in a scenario between fraud and a circus”.