Spain calls for Catalan separatist to be jailed for 25 years as rebellion trial nears
- Oriol Junqueras is accused along with 11 others of rebellion and using ‘the necessary violence to ensure the criminal outcome sought’
Spanish prosecutors have called former Catalan vice-president Oriol Junqueras to be imprisoned for 25 years on charges of rebellion and misuse of public funds, the highest prison term being sought for separatist leaders who pushed for Catalan independence last year.
The formal indictment issued on Friday by Spain’s Public Prosecutor accuses 22 people of varying degrees of involvement in organising the push to break away from Spain, including holding a banned referendum.
Junqueras was accused as the main promoter with 11 other politicians, activists and civil servants also charged with rebellion for using “the necessary violence to ensure the criminal outcome sought”.
The banned vote in the northeastern region caused Spain’s gravest political crisis in four decades, prompting an unprecedented four-month-long suspension of Catalonia’s government.
One year later, most of those involved have either been indicted or fled the country. A new Catalan separatist administration has kept up a defiant pro-independence rhetoric but has not broken the law.
In October, Spain’s Supreme Court wrapped up the probe into 18 politicians and activists for their links to the turbulent events.
Four more officials who were in charge of the regional police are being investigated in the country’s National Court and were also indicted on Friday, with prosecutors calling for 11 years imprisonment for former regional police chief Josep Lluis Trapero.
Both trials are expected to begin in early 2019.
Friday’s highly expected indictment did not involve the Catalan politicians who fled the country, including former regional president Carles Puigdemont, who now lives in Belgium and Spain is considered a fugitive.
Junqueras, who stayed in Spain and was jailed preventively exactly one year ago, could also face a ban from holding public office for the next 25 years if the judges agree during the upcoming trial.
The second-highest prison terms in the indictments – 17 years – were for Jordi Cuixart and Jordi Sanchez, activists who at the time headed two civil society groups pushing for Catalan independence, and also for Carme Forcadell, who was the Catalan parliament’s speaker.
Weeks after the banned referendum went ahead amid violence against voters when police tried to stop it, Forcadell presided over a tense house session where a narrow separatist majority of lawmakers passed an independence declaration.
The declaration did not have any immediate effect and instead prompted central authorities to move swiftly to take over control of Catalonia.
Under the Spanish criminal code, rebellion punishes with prison terms ranging from 15 to 30 years to those who “rise violently and publicly’” against the government or the country’s constitution.
In a separate indictment on Friday, state lawyers representing the central government called for the case to be tried as the lesser charge of sedition, which doesn’t involve violence and can be punished with a maximum of 15 years in prison.
The different criteria between the public prosecutor and the state lawyers could have limited effect in the trial.
But the fact that the latter has dropped the rebellion charge is seen as a sign of how the centre-left government of Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez needs support in parliament from separatist parties to pass the national budget and remain in power.
