Puigdemont calls on the Supreme Court to adapt the cause to the "passage of time" and the new legal "reality" decided by the Government

The former Catalan president Carles Puigdemont, escaped in Belgium for five and a half years, has demanded this Thursday the Supreme Court, through his lawyer, to adapt the criminal case against him to the "passage of time", to the sentence of the procés issued in 2019 and to the new "reality" created by the reform of the Criminal Code agreed by the Government of Pedro Sánchez and ERC at the end of last year. The court has held a hearing to review the appeals of Puigdemont and former Catalan ministers Antoni Comín and Lluís Puig, also fugitives, against the decision of Supreme Court magistrate Pablo Llarena to partially maintain their prosecution after that reform of the Criminal Code. During the session, the prosecutor Javier Zaragoza has accused Puigdemont of using "tricks" to "mess and bog down" his judicial procedure in Spain, which he has considered "an abuse of rights and procedural fraud" after being "five years missing". "They are only available to Justice for what benefits them, to appeal everything," he said. Zaragoza has remarked that it is "the only time in history that a rebel has been able to exercise all rights and has not acquired any burden."

After the reform of the Criminal Code, which the Executive and ERC agreed with the express purpose of reducing the punishment of the independence leaders of the procés, the investigating magistrate Pablo Llarena maintained the prosecution of Puigdemont, Comín and Puig for the crime of aggravated embezzlement (and not for the attenuated embezzlement introduced by the Government in that reform) and replaced the crime of sedition (which has disappeared from the Criminal Code) with that of disobedience. The judge rejected the allegation of the State Prosecutor's Office that the new crime of aggravated public disorder should be applied to those accused of sedition.

The lawyer of the former president of the Gaeneralitat de Catalunya Carles Puigdemont, Gonzalo Boye, upon his arrival at the Supreme Court, this Thursday. Eduardo Parra (Europa Press)

The defense of the former president already appealed, in vain, against that decision of Llarena (considering that the prosecution should be annulled in its entirety) now has filed another appeal before the Supreme Court in which it asks to annul the national arrest warrants and revoke the prosecution of Puigdemont and the former counselors. The objective of Puigdemont's lawyer, Gonzalo Boye, is "to adapt the procedure to the reality created by the executive and legislative power", in reference to the reform of the Criminal Code. That reform was scorned by Puigdemont at first, although now his defense appeals to it to request the annulment of the case claiming that it has created a new legal reality. "No one is responsible for the mess of deplorable penal reform," said Boye. The lawyer has stressed that the initial indictment has been "outdated", also due to the "passage of time" and other facts, such as the sentence of the procés and the reform of the Criminal Code that repeals sedition and modifies embezzlement, something that, in his opinion, places the procedure in "a scenario of procedural imbroglio". "It's time to rearrange this," he said.

The prosecutor has responded that the only thing that the fugitive former leaders intend is "to mess up the matter more procedurally to continue raising new battles", and that the passage of time in this case only has a few responsible: those who fled so as not to be available to justice. "All this procedural bogged down has not been the work of the court, nor of the Prosecutor's Office, nor of the Legal Profession: it has been the work of the appellants," he said. In the same line, the lawyer of the State, Rosa Seoane, has responded to the defense of Puigdemont that "so many things have happened" because "after five years of the indictment they have not submitted to Justice", so they are "procedurally frozen" since 2018. Vox, for its part, has disagreed with the decision of magistrate Pablo Llarena not to typify the facts in the new crime of aggravated public disorder.

The defense of Lluís Puig has requested that his prosecution for embezzlement be annulled alleging that he did not make any payment from the Ministry of Culture and, in any case, has demanded that the new type of attenuated embezzlement be applied, which contemplates penalties of between one and four years in prison.