Catalan prof extradition bid
BY ANNIE BROWN a.brown@dailyrecord.co.uk SCOTS prosecutors have resurrected the crime of treason to push for the extradition of an exiled Catalan politician to Spain.
Professor Clara Ponsati, 61, is wanted in Madrid on charges of violent rebellion and misappropriation of public funds during Catalonia’s independence referendum last year.
Spain issued a European Arrest Warrant for her return but extradition requires that the allegations would amount to an equivalent criminal offence were it to have occurred in the UK.
The Crown Office, acting on behalf the Kingdom of Spain, will argue at a hearing this month that the crime of treason and conspiracy to alter the constitution by criminal means would meet the test needed to send her back.
Her solicitor Aamer Anwar said Ponsati, who teaches at the University of St Andrews, could face a up to 33 years in jail if she is sent to Spain and convicted of the charges.
Anwar said Ponsati regards it as “surreal” that she is accused of treason.
He said: “Not a scrap of evidence has been provided by Spain of any violent and criminal conduct by Clara Ponsati.
“She was neither a member of a political party, nor a parliamentarian but an education minister for only two and a half months, yet she is now accused of committing the equivalent crime of treason.”
The last time treason was used in the UK was in 1945, to prosecute Nazi propagandist William Joyce, or Lord Haw-Haw.
Anwar accused the Spanish authorities of “abusing” the European Arrest Warrant as “a tool of political repression”.
Catalan president Quim Torra is to meet with Spanish prime minister Pedro Sanchez next Monday and will come to Scotland the next day to see Ponsati.
The professor hopes Spain’s new Socialist-led government will agree a political solution.
Other Catalan leaders, including ex-president Carlos Puigdemont, face similar extradition cases in Germany.
The Crown Office said: “In extradition cases in Scotland the Crown is required by statute to act on behalf of the requesting state or territory.”