The Prosecutor’s Office asks the Supreme Court to amnesty the ‘procés’ and the Tsunami case opened for terrorism against Puigdemont

The Prosecutor’s Office has asked the Supreme Court to apply the amnesty law to the pro-independence leaders prosecuted in the three proceedings that this judicial body has open in relation to the processes independence of Catalonia. The public ministry understands that the crimes of disobedience and embezzlement that are attributed to the main pro-independence leaders – among them, the former president of the Generalitat Carles Puigdemont; the general secretary of ERC, Marta Rovira; and the former Catalan vice president and president of ERC, Oriol Junqueras— fit within the provisions of the grace measure, and that it also covers the crime of terrorism for which Puigdemont is being investigated in the Tsunami case. Furthermore, the Prosecutor’s Office interprets that the interests of the European Union have not been affected, so it is not possible to keep the case alive due to the diversion of public funds.

The public ministry thus responds to the questions that the Criminal Chamber, the investigating judge of the processesPablo Llarena, and the investigating judge of the Tsunami case, Susana Polo, asked the parties last week to get their opinion before deciding how to apply the amnesty in each of the three open cases: the procedure being followed against Carles Puigdemont, Toni Comín, Lluís Puig and Marta Rovira, the four defendants who are fleeing from justice; the case already tried and sentenced for which Oriol Junqueras and three other former Catalan councilors continue to serve a sentence of disqualification for embezzlement; and the Tsunami Democràtic investigation, in which Puigdemont is being investigated for terrorism. For her part, Llarena must also decide whether or not she will automatically lift the arrest warrants against the fugitives.

The deadline to present the briefs ended this Wednesday, just one day after the Board of Court Prosecutors met to debate this issue. The four prosecutors who have led the prosecution for the processes in the Supreme Court since 2017 they opposed amnesty for the crime of embezzlement, contrary to what was indicated by the State Attorney General, Álvaro García Ortiz. Finally, by a very slim majority (19 votes in favor, 17 against and one abstention), the fiscal leadership endorsed the thesis of the head of the Prosecutor’s Office, which defends that said conduct of diversion of public funds should be forgiven because it did not exist ” personal enrichment of a patrimonial nature”, the only case that is excluded from the Amnesty Law.

After the four prosecutors facing García Ortiz withdrew from the case on Tuesday to avoid having to assume that criterion, the writings sent to the Supreme Court are signed by the lieutenant prosecutor of the Supreme Court, Ángeles Sánchez-Conde (number two of the Attorney General’s Office of the State), and the chief criminal prosecutor of the Prosecutor’s Office of the same judicial body, Joaquín Sánchez-Covisa, both appointed by García Ortiz.

Before entering into the substance of the matter, the two new prosecutors in the case emphasize that the entry into force of the Amnesty Law does not mean that “the reality of the facts” for which some leaders were prosecuted are called into question. or condemned. Furthermore, they emphasize that the application of a pardon to certain crimes, “by decision of the legislator,” does not in any case mean “calling into question the legitimacy of the sentences or that of the judges and courts that issued them.”

Once this point has been clarified, the Prosecutor’s Office points out that there is not much to discuss about the forgiveness of the crime of disobedience that the Catalan authorities committed by ignoring the successive requirements of the Constitutional Court before the approval of the so-called disconnection laws and the illegal referendum of October 1, 2017. The purpose of failing to comply with said court orders, the tax report says, was “to achieve the calling and holding of the independence referendum.” For this reason, he understands that it fits into the amnesty and asks to erase this crime for both Puigdemont, Comín, Puig and Rovira as well as for former counselor Clara Ponsatí (also on the run until she returned to Spain a year ago) and Junqueras; as well as for the pardoned former councilors Raül Romeva, Jordi Turull and Dolors Bassa.

Enrichment is a “plus”

Prosecutors have used a similar argument when addressing embezzlement, a crime for which the escaped independence leaders are being prosecuted and for which Junqueras, Romeva, Turull and Bassa were convicted. The representatives of the Public Ministry point out that this crime must also be amnestied “by legal imperative”, since the Amnesty Law establishes that the diversion of public funds from the processes “as long as there has been no purpose of enrichment”, understood as “personal benefit of a patrimonial nature”.

The Prosecutor’s Office points out that this “purpose of enrichment” or “desire to obtain a personal financial benefit” is the “plus” that, according to the law, the diversion of public funds must have to be outside the umbrella of the amnesty, and interprets that in this case said plus is not appreciated.

On the other hand, the two Supreme Court prosecutors argue that the embezzlement is also amnestiable because in the entire case there is “no allusion or reference to the fact that there has been a direct or indirect impact on the financial interests of the European Union.” And they add that the funds diverted to promote the independence challenge abroad were not European funds. “From the point of view of income, it can be stated that the Union budget did not suffer any impact,” the writings say.

There is no violation of human rights

Finally, and in a third letter, Lieutenant Prosecutor Sánchez-Conde requests amnesty for the crime of terrorism for which Puigdemont, the ERC deputy in the Parliament, Ruben Wagensberg and ten other people allegedly linked to the independence platform are being investigated. Democratic Tsunami. The number two of the Prosecutor’s Office assures that the demonstrations, many of them violent, organized by Tsunami after the sentencing of the process, in October 2019, fall within the scope of the law, so the case must end up being archived.

Following the wording of the norm, the prosecutor affirms that those riots meet the requirements to be amnestied, because they did not “intentionally” cause any “serious” violation of human rights, regulated by the European Convention on Human Rights and the International law, and that none of the defendants can be accused of conduct related to “death, abortion or torture or human or degrading treatment.”

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