President brands lawsuit against pro-independence leaders a ‘farce’

Upon his return to Belgium, where he had been previously been seeking refuge from the Spanish justice system alongside some members of the former government, ex-president Carles Puigdemont took part in an event to show support for the jailed pro-independence leaders. Some of them have been behind bars in preventive detention for over nine months now.

“An inexcusable duty”

Puigdemont called for the “immediate” release of all those in jail because of their roles in Catalonia’s push for independence last year. In a speech made from the balcony of the so-called ‘House of the Republic’ in Waterloo, the ex-president said that the new “political prisoners” should not “spend a single minute in jail.”

“The freedom we yearn for, for which we are fighting, begins to demand the freedom of the prisoners. It is an inexcusable duty,” he said at the event on Saturday afternoon. “It is not a matter of how long, short, easy, or complex the path, but there is a path and it has a good end,” he stated.

“Farce”

The current Catalan president Quim Torra, speaking from the same balcony with Puigdemont by his side, called the trial against the pro-independence leaders a “farce.” In his opinion, the fact that “exiled” Catalan politicians remain free justifies this.

“We have seen that in Europe, in a free Europe that judges freely and where there is a separation of powers, today our exiles are all here,” Torra said. He referred to those pro-independence leaders, like Carles Puigdemont himself, who left the country following last October’s declaration of independence in order to seek refuge abroad from the Spanish justice system. Fears were shared that, should those abroad set foot in Spain or if they had never left, they would not receive a fair trial.