Former Catalan President Carles Puigdemont, who has been on the run in Belgium for five and a half years, this Thursday demanded through his lawyer at the Supreme Court that the criminal case against him be adjusted to the “passing of time” of the judgment announced in 2019 and the new “reality” created by the penal code reform agreed by the government of Pedro Sánchez and ERC late last year. The court has held a hearing to consider the appeals of Puigdemont and former Catalan councilors Antoni Comín and Lluís Puig, also refugees, against Supreme Court Justice Pablo Llarena’s decision to partially maintain their prosecution under this penal code reform. During the session, prosecutor Javier Zaragoza accused Puigdemont of using “tricks” to “confuse and slow down” his court proceedings in Spain, which he saw as “abuse of rights and procedural fraud” after suffering “disappearances for five years”. . “They are only available to the judiciary for what is of use to them, which is to appeal against everything,” he said. Zaragoza remarked that it was “the only time in history that a rebel could exercise all rights and incur no burden”.
Following the reform of the Penal Code, agreed by the Executive and the ERC with the express aim of reducing punishment for pro-independence procés, coroner Pablo Llarena retained the prosecution of Puigdemont, Comín and Puig for the offenses of aggravated embezzlement (and not for the softened embezzlement introduced by the government with this reform) and replaced the crime of sedition (which has disappeared from the penal code) with that of disobedience. The judge dismissed prosecutors’ allegations that the new offense of serious public disturbance should apply to those accused of hate speech.
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The ex-president’s defense has already unsuccessfully appealed Llarena’s decision (and believed the prosecution should be voided altogether) and has now lodged another appeal with the Supreme Court, asking for the overturning of the national Arrest warrants requested Drop the charges against Puigdemont and the ex-counselors. The aim of Puigdemont’s lawyer Gonzalo Boye is to “adapt the procedure to the reality created by the executive and legislature”, referring to the reform of the penal code. Puigdemont initially opposed this reform, but his defense is now appealing to them to ask for the proceedings to be set aside, on the grounds that they have created a new legal reality. “No one is to blame for the mess of deplorable criminal justice reform,” Boye said. The attorney stressed that the original indictment was “outdated” also due to the “time lag” and other facts such as the verdict of the trial and the reform of the Penal Code, which abolishes sedition and modifies embezzlement, which is also the case, in his opinion the process is in a “state of procedural confusion”. “It’s time to rearrange this,” he said.
The prosecutor has responded that the only thing the former refugee leaders want is “to make the matter more procedural in order to continue fomenting new battles” and that the passage of time in this case affects only a few responsible: those who fled are to avoid making themselves available for justice. “This whole procedural disorder was not the work of the court, the prosecution, or the bar, it was the work of the plaintiffs,” he explained. Along the same lines, state attorney Rosa Seoane has responded to Puigdemont’s defense that “so many things happened” because they “did not face justice after five years of indictment,” for which they have since been “procedurally frozen.” are 2018. Vox, for its part, disagreed with Judge Pablo Llarena’s decision not to classify the facts of the case with the new crime of aggravated public disturbance.
Lluís Puig’s defense requested that his prosecution for embezzlement be dropped on the grounds that he had not made any payments from the Ministry of Culture, and in any case called for the new type of mitigated embezzlement to be applied to him, which is considering penalties between one and four years in prison.
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The lawyer of the former president of the Gaeneralitat de Catalunya Carles Puigdemont, Gonzalo Boye, upon his arrival at the Supreme Court this Thursday. Eduardo Parra (Europa Press)