SPAIN’S state prosecutor yesterday requested a European arrest warrant for the deposed Catalan president, Carles Puigdemont, and four of his former regional ministers after they failed to return from Belgium to testify in court.
Earlier, prosecutors at Spain’s High Court in Madrid asked for eight sacked members of Catalonia’s regional government to be jailed over their role in October’s independence referendum. Nine Catalan politicians testified over accusations of rebellion, sedition and misuse of public funds.
Last week, Mariano Rajoy, the Spanish Prime Minister imposed direct rule on Catalonia, dissolving the regional parliament and calling local elections for December 21st. This came after the referendum vote to declare independence from Spain.
Prosecutors asked the High Court judge to jail eight of the nine members who turned up for questioning. Those included Oriol Junqueras the deputy leader, Interior Minister Joaquin Forn, foreign affairs chief Raül Romeva and spokesman Jordi Turull.
Prosecutors said that the ninth, Catalonia’s former business minister Santi Vila, should be granted a 50,000 euros £44,000 bail. He resigned before the Catalan parliament voted for independence on Friday. A judge will decide whether the officials should go to jail, pending an investigation that could potentially lead to a trial.
The judge can also grant them conditional bail and order them to surrender their passports. Meanwhile, five other senior members of the Catalan parliament, as well as speaker Carme Forcadell, are facing the same charges but, because of their parliamentary immunity, their cases are being handled by the Supreme Court.
Their hearings will start on November 9th. The court summons also gave the defendants three days to pay a deposit of 6.2 million euros to cover potential liabilities.
