Madrid
MEP Clara Ponsati crossed the Franco-Spanish border by car on Tuesday afternoon, with a cameraman from the Catalan News Agency as a passenger.
She immediately gave a press conference at the headquarters of the Barcelona Journalists Association, where she said all the bad things she thinks of Spain, Europe and even the Catalan government, at the hands of the independence party competitor of his own, accused of being nothing less than the
"instrument of the Spanish occupation"
.
When she left, she was taken to court by the regional police, the Mossos de Esquadra, denouncing to anyone who wanted to hear
"an illegal arrest"
and brandishing her MEP accreditation, worth parliamentary immunity.
Around 200 protesters expressed their solidarity and outrage.
Then, five hours later, she came out free, with a summons on April 24 to the Supreme Court, which wants to try her for disobedience.
On Wednesday morning, Ponsati flew to attend the plenary session in Brussels.
Read alsoScottish justice waives extradition of Catalan separatist Clara Ponsati
The Catalan stay of the former regional Minister of Education was brief and turbulent.
It was above all a great first.
The first excursion on Spanish soil of one of the separatists who left to live abroad to avoid the action of a justice which intends to judge them for their role in the organization of the illegal referendum of 2017. She came out of it without go through the prison box.
The visit illustrates the legal complexity of the game of cat and mouse which opposes the Spanish judicial authorities, in particular the instructor of the Supreme Court, Judge Pablo Llarena, to the separatists who have gone to live far from their field of action.
When some want to see it as a snub, others believe they are observing the instrument of a defense strategy, even a trial balloon.
If a regional minister who left to live in Scotland was able to return to her “country” without being worried for more than a few hours, than did her leader at the time and a great figure of independence, the former Catalan president Carles Puigdemont ?
The arrest is illegal.
But in Spain, the rule of law does not matter
Carles Puigdemont
Ponsati's dangers in Spain, however, were largely controlled.
The repeal of the offense of sedition voted in Parliament by the left last September spared him the risk of prison.
Her quick release
“corresponds to the scenarios I presented to her when she mentioned her decision”
to go to Barcelona, explains to
Figaro
his lawyer, Gonzalo Boye.
Which considers that his arrest is illegal, because it violates his immunity as an MEP.
The Supreme Court considers for its part that the latter does not cover the procedure, opened before his election in Strasbourg.
Furthermore, the lawyer accuses Judge Llarena of
“not respecting the conclusions of the General Court of the European Union, which told him, in response to his own questions, that he is not the competent judge”
.
Puigdemont is being prosecuted for aggravated embezzlement, an offense punishable by prison which would trigger his sending to preventive detention if he ventured into Spain.
It is on the political level that the stay of his former collaborator is most useful to him.
“The arrest is illegal.
But in Spain, the rule of law does not matter
,” he tweeted on Tuesday evening.
Before calling out to the President of the European Parliament:
"Nothing to say, dear Roberta Metsola?"