Judge Pablo Llarena of the Spanish Supreme Court ruled on Friday that 13 senior Catalan leaders – including Jordi Turull, Catalonia's presidential candidate and the deposed regional president, Carles Puigdemont – would be charged with rebellion over their roles in last year’s unilateral referendum and subsequent declaration of independence.
The judge also ruled that Turull and four others be remanded in custody as they posed a serious flight risk and could seek to push ahead with their plans for unilateral independence if allowed to remain at liberty.
Puigdemont, who has been in self-imposed exile in Brussels for five months and faces immediate arrest should he return to Spain, said his former colleagues had been jailed for “their ideas and their commitment”, adding: “The anti-democratic Spanish state shames Europe.”
While announcing the rebellion charges, which carry a maximum sentence of 30 years’ imprisonment, Llarena said Catalan separatist politicians and grassroots groups had “colluded” for the past six years to draw up a plan for regional independence in defiance of Spain’s legal and constitutional order.
Among those also charged with the same offence are the former Catalan vice-president, Oriol Junqueras, and the senior civil society group figures Jordi Cuixart and Jordi SÃ nchez.
The judge ordered a total of 25 Catalan leaders be tried for rebellion, misuse of public funds or disobeying the state.
In a 70-page ruling, Llarena noted that, from 2012 onwards, the Catalan government had been “drawing up a route map for Catalonia’s transition process towards becoming an independent country” and co-ordinating the campaign with Cuixart and SÃ nchez’s influential grassroots groups.
“Despite repeated warnings that these parliamentary initiatives were unconstitutional and invalid … and despite the suspension and invalidation of the referendum decrees, the executive organs of the Catalan government pressed on with a permanent and obsessive agenda,” said the judge.
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