Catalan representatives testify as witnesses in independence trial

Some Catalan representatives were set to testify in the morning session of the ninth day of the independence trial.

An MP for the Esquerra Republicana party in the Spanish Congress, Gabriel Rufián, was the first one to give testimony as witness after the Basque Country leader, Íñigo Urkullu, the official who started the day in Spain's Supreme Court.

During his testimony, Rufián said that during the whole independence bid he only saw violence "from Spain's police during October 1 referendum."

"Journalists standing on Spanish police cars"

A former left-wing MP, Albano Dante Fachin, testified after Rufián.

During his cross-examination, he said that the September 20 protest "was quite plural, not only pro-independence." 

According to him, already in the morning there were "journalists standing on Spanish police cars."

He also referred to the October 1 vote. "Some people were beaten for trying to vote against independence in referendum," said Fachin, alluding to 300,000 people who voted 'no' in that vote.

A former Catalan parliament president, Ernest Benach, was also summoned to testify in the morning, before the last testimony of the session before the lunch break, Ada Colau, the mayor of Barcelona.