Spanish justice on Thursday dropped the main charge against Carles Puigdemont for his role in the secession attempt of Catalonia in 2017, after the entry into force of a controversial penal reform of the leftist government.
The judge prosecuting the former independence regional president “applies the derogation of sedition to Puigdemont but maintains the prosecution for embezzlement and disobedience”, indicated the Spanish Supreme Court in a press release.
The offense of sedition, the main charge against Mr. Puigdemont, has indeed been removed as part of a reform of the Penal Code adopted at the end of December after heated debates by Parliament.
It has been replaced by the offense of “public disorder”, resulting in less severe penalties, but this criminal qualification cannot be applied to Mr. Puigdemont, estimated the magistrate.
The main figure in the 2017 secession attempt, who fled to Belgium to escape justice, is therefore now only prosecuted for embezzlement of public funds (embezzlement) – an offense whose sentences have also been reduced within the framework of the reform of the Penal Code — and disobedience.
He therefore theoretically risks only 4 years in prison, a sentence much lower than the 13 years in prison imposed in 2019 on the former vice-president of his regional government, Oriol Junqueras.
Intended to give pledges to the Catalan independence movement, part of which supports the government in Parliament, the reform of the Spanish Penal Code was seen as a very risky bet by Socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez less than a year before the legislative elections.
The right, which is ahead of the Socialists in the polls, fired red balls at this text, which some Socialist barons themselves did not hesitate to criticize harshly.
Mr. Sanchez has made appeasement in Catalonia one of his top priorities since he came to power in 2018, less than a year after the secession attempt in October 2017 of this rich region in the northeast of the country.
He thus resumed an open dialogue with part of the Catalan separatists, still in power in the region, and in 2021 pardoned the nine separatist leaders, including Mr. Junqueras, sentenced to sentences ranging from 9 to 13 years in prison for their role in the events of 2017.