The court proceedings are dividing the country.
By James McAuley and James McAuley Foreign correspondent focusing on French and European politics and culture Email Bio Follow Pamela Rolfe April 25 at 5:00 AM MADRID — The trial that has divided Spain is taking place in a courtroom that is classic Spanish baroque, with marble columns and ornate flourishes. The seven judges preside on gilded, red-velvet chairs. The 12 defendants, all implicated in staging Catalonia’s independence referendum in October 2017, sit in a small gallery beneath them.
Additional organizers of the referendum, including Puigdemont, are living in exile. They would be arrested if they return to Spain but are not part of this case. As Oriol Junqueras, Catalonia’s former vice president and one of the defendants, said at the start of the trial, the exercise represents “an action against an ideology and against political dissent.”
Spanish voters will participate in a snap election on Sunday — a poll forced by Catalan nationalist lawmakers who grew frustrated by talks with Sanchez and blocked his 2019 budget. If Sanchez loses his job, it will be partly because of the Catalan separatist movement and partly because of the backlash to it, in the form of Vox.
But Ignacio Gonzalez Vega, a judge and spokesman for the independent Judges for Democracy, said that so far, “from what I have seen, the court is showing itself to be independent and impartial.”Jean-François Blanco, a French lawyer who is among the international observers, was not as sanguine. He said he was “shocked” by the judges’ decision to ban video footage from the day of the referendum as evidence until after the witnesses’ oral testimonies are over.
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