GRASS-roots pro-independence leader Jordi Sànchez – former president of the Catalan National Assembly (ANC) – has had his bid to be released from prison rejected.
Supreme Court judge Pablo Llarena said there were “new elements” of his involvement in events last October – protests against the police in the run-up to the independence referendum.
Llarena also said there was a risk of a repeat offence because Sànchez maintained “his pro-independence ideology” and had not stepped down from public office.
Deposed interior minister Joaquim Forn, who is also imprisoned without trial, gave up his MP post, but Sànchez remains an elected member.
However, last week the Supreme Court decided to that Forn should remain in prison, despite his resignation.
Sànchez was among the most prominent pro-independence figures as ANC president, but resigned when he was jailed to run in the December 21 election on a pro-independence ticket, along with deposed president Carles Puigdemont.
Sanchez tweeted his disappointment at yesterday’s ruling: “Again I deny the #freedom. Unexplained legally and cruel to my family. Violence has never been ours and it will never be.
“May the solidarity and dignity of so many people always follow the paths of non-violence. Light in the eyes and strength in the arm!”
Llarena said pro-independence civil society organisations, such as the ANC, saw “citizen movement as a strategic element to achieve independence” from Spain.
In evidence he used notes from Josep María Jové – the number two at the Catalan economy ministry – to demonstrate that the pro- independence parties and grass-roots leaders saw citizen mobilisation as “strategic” to their aims.
Four prominent political figures are currently in Madrid jails – Catalan vice-president, Oriol Junqueras, Forn, Sànchez and Jordi Cuixart, who heads Omnium Cultural. All are being held without bail, accused of sedition.
Llarena said that the interventions from political figures and grass-roots groups “have projected the existence of a shared action, having come to affirm Mr Sanchez on an occasion that, on this question, spoke on behalf of former president Mr Puigdemont, or of the sovereign parties ... at the same time that he was proclaimed guarantor that the referendum would be celebrated from which the declaration of independence would be derived, unless the government of the state prevents it from improper acts”.
The European Commission, meanwhile, has said it will not “encourage” Spain to launch an independent inquiry into the state police violence during the Catalan referendum.
Dimitris Avramopoulos, the EU’s Home Affairs Commissioner, made the announcement in response to a parliamentary question by Swedish MEP, Jasenko Selimovic, who said there was a “crucial need” for such an investigation.
Selimovic asked the question on October 3, saying that 893 people were injured on October 1 due to the actions of the Spanish police and the Guardia Civil – a figure later revised to 1066 by Catalonia’s health department.
He said: “In the end, the Catalan Health department listed 1066 injured people after the charges.
“The issue in question here is not Catalonia’s independence, which is a Spanish domestic affair, but the police violence.”
Selimovic called on the Commission to “encourage the Spanish authorities to conduct this investigation”.
However, Avramopoulos said that opening such an inquiry was “the responsibility of the member state involved and the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union is only applicable to European law”.
Spain, he said, was “responsible for maintaining law and order and providing security within its borders”.
In his official response, he added: “These are times for unity and stability, not division and fragmentation.”
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