Spain’s Supreme Court overturned a report from its Board of Prosecutors after a board member of the criminal section proposed dropping terrorism charges against the fugitive and Catalan separatist MEP Carles Puigdemont
Álvaro Redondo’s report opposed a Supreme Court investigation of the charges of terrorism laid out against Puigdemont late last year by a lower court. These charges are part of an investigation into riots led by the Catalan separatist group Tsunami Democràtic.
Any amnesty has been controversial socially, politically, and legally, with Socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez desperate to appease the Catalans, principally those from Puigdemont’s party. Few legal experts have given their support to the clearly political amnesty bill, and recent rulings including terrorism charges against Puigdemont and other separatists have only complicated the matter.
A fugitive who continues to lead the separatist party Junts Per Cat, Puigdemont is also the former regional president of Catalonia and in that position led the 2017 illegal referendum on Catalan independence. He then fled Spain and has been in Belgium ever since. Other leaders of the unilateral referendum were tried and found guilty of various crimes in 2019. The riots—seen as a reaction to the guilty verdict against the referendum’s organizers—in the present case are still the basis of a prosecution making its way through the courts. Puigdemont is accused of having helped instigate these riots, causing widespread chaos and property damage in Barcelona.
According to Spanish media, a furor ensured among the group of prosecutors that had to evaluate and approve the report when it learned that Redondo had initially proposed to prosecute Puigdemont but changed his report after a meeting with the state general prosecuting attorney Álvaro García Ortiz. Ortiz was appointed to that position in 2022 by Sánchez, who is now trying to force through an amnesty for Catalan separatists as part of his agreement with Catalans in exchange for their much-needed support for his government.
After a four hour meeting, the board of prosecutors threw another obstacle in the way of the amnesty, by concurring with the judge originally handling the case and his decision to charge Puigdemont with terrorism.
In an unprecedented move, Ortiz released a statement denying that he had unduly influenced Redondo and saying that he would have given the prosecutor merely “instructions” or “suggestions” to defend the position of dropping the charges against Puigdemont. Redondo had in fact been in charge of defending such a position, though he had initially decided it was indefensible.
The same case also resulted in charges of terrorism against MP Rubén Wagensberg, who has since fled to Switzerland, and the secretary general of Esqerra Republicana Catalana Marta Rovira.
Now processing the Spanish legal system, the report to the Supreme Court will be made by Ortiz’s number two, Ángeles Sánchez Conde, who is also a Sánchez appointee. A key concern for law-abiding Spaniards is just how far Sanchez will need to make concessions in order to govern by appeasing those now accused of terror offenses.
