TEHRAN (Iran News) – Spain’s Supreme Court plans to sentence Catalan separatist leaders to a maximum of 15 years in prison over a 2017 bid for independence, a judicial source said on Saturday. Some of the Catalan separatist leaders on trial would be found guilty of charges of sedition and misuse of public funds, but […]
TEHRAN (Iran News) – Spain’s Supreme Court plans to sentence Catalan separatist leaders to a maximum of 15 years in prison over a 2017 bid for independence, a judicial source said on Saturday.
Some of the Catalan separatist leaders on trial would be found guilty of charges of sedition and misuse of public funds, but not of the more severe charge of rebellion, the source told Reuters.
The verdict is expected to be made public next week, most likely on Monday, the source said.
A Supreme Court spokeswoman declined to comment.
The public prosecutor had sought the longest prison term, 25 years, for Oriol Junqueras, former deputy leader of the Catalan regional government. But the court plans to sentence him to 13-15 years in jail, the judicial source said.
Major Spanish newspapers including El Pais, La Vanguardia and El Mundo have published similar information about the sentence, also citing sources.
The Catalan independence movement began in 1922, when Francesc Macià founded the political party Estat Català (Catalan State). In 1931, Estat Català and other parties formed Esquerra Republicana de Catalunya (Republican Left of Catalonia; ERC). Macià proclaimed a Catalan Republic in 1931, subsequently accepting autonomy within the Spanish state after negotiations with the leaders of the Second Spanish Republic. During the Spanish Civil War, General Francisco Franco abolished Catalan autonomy in 1938. Following Franco’s death in 1975, Catalan political parties concentrated on autonomy rather than independence.
The modern independence movement began in 2010 when the Constitutional Court of Spain ruled that some of the articles of the 2006 Statute of Autonomy—which had been agreed with the Spanish government and passed by a referendum in Catalonia—were unconstitutional, and others were to be interpreted restrictively.
- source : Iran Daily, Irannews
