Armando G. Tejeda

Correspondent

La Jornada Newspaper
Tuesday, October 1, 2024, p. 31

Madrid. The Spanish Supreme Court decided not to apply the general amnesty law for the crime of embezzlement, meaning prominent leaders of the Catalan independence movement, including former vice president Oriol Junqueras and former president Carles Puigdemont, will not benefit from the grace measure.

The amnesty law was approved last November in the Congress of Deputies as part of an agreement between the parties in government, the PSOE and the Sumar coalition, with the independentists of Junts per Catalunya (JxCat), who demanded it in exchange of their support to carry out the investiture of Pedro Sánchez as president of the government.

The law seeks to exonerate the leaders and militants of the Catalan independence movement from all criminal responsibilities for their participation in the failed unilateral declaration of independence in October 2017, among whom, according to the Spanish courts, had committed the crimes of sedition, disobedience, , public disorders, prevarication, attack against authority and even acts of terrorism low intensity.

The crime of embezzlement was also foreseen, but with the exception that it was limited by European legislation, which is precisely the argument of the Supreme Court judges for not applying the law in some cases and that mainly affects the main leaders of the Catalan independence movement. .

The pro-independence leaders directly affected by this resolution are: former vice president Junqueras, former councilors Raül Romeva, Dolors Bassa and Jordi Turull, and indirectly former president Puigdemont, who still has an international search and arrest warrant precisely for a crime of misuse of public resources.