Catalonia’s former prime minister, Carles Puigdemont, was among the separatists who wanted to secede from Spain. He was therefore persecuted and escaped imprisonment, initially in exile.
Former Catalan Prime Minister Carles Puigdemont no longer has to answer charges of sedition in Spain. The Supreme Court said on Thursday that the charge would be dropped, citing recent judicial reforms. However, the court upholds prosecutions for “misappropriation of public funds” and “disobedience”.
In December, after heated debates, the Spanish Parliament abolished the criminal offense of rioting as part of a reform of the penal code and replaced it with the criminal offense of disturbing public order. This provides for less severe penalties and, according to the judge’s assessment, cannot be applied to Puigdemont. In the case of “misappropriation of public funds”, for which the Spanish judiciary is still prosecuting Puigdemont, the penalties have been reduced as part of the judicial reform.
Puidgemont fled Spanish justice to Belgium
Puigdemont was leader of the Junts per Catalunya (Together for Catalonia) party and one of the leaders in Catalonia’s controversial referendum on secession from Spain in 2017, held despite a ban on the Spanish judiciary. After being ousted by the central government in Madrid, he went into exile in Belgium in October 2017 to avoid prosecution in Spain.
Theoretically, Puigdemont faces four years in prison, which is a much lighter sentence than his former comrades-in-arms. Nine pro-independence advocates were sentenced to between nine and 13 years in prison in 2019. In 2021 they were pardoned by the Spanish government.
Source: Stern
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