Spanish official denies undermining jailed leaders’ presumption of innocence

Irene Lozano, the Secretary of State for Global Spain, stated on Saturday that her organization’s report “The truth about the Catalan independence bid” does not undermine the presumption of innocence of the jailed pro-independence leaders, whose sentences for their roles in the 2017 referendum are expected to be announced by the Supreme Court in late September or October.

Lozano’s comments, which were spoken at an event organized by Catalan Civil Society in Barcelona on linguistic coexistence in Catalonia, come following a complaint filed by Jordi Sánchez, Jordi Turull and Josep Rull against Global Spain for allegedly violating their presumption of innocence by assuming, among others, that they did indeed disobey the Constitutional Court.  

The head of the organization dependent on Spain’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, EU, and Cooperation did, however, celebrate the fact that Sánchez, Turull and Rull “have faith in the Spanish justice system” having filed the complaint.

Lozano also made mention of the Catalan government’s decision to file a complaint on the same report on the grounds that it entails “a [political] interference in the judiciary” that could possibly imply a misuse of public funds, and recommended that “everyone” read the report for themselves.