MADRID (Sputnik) — Catalan nationalist leaders Jordi Sanchez and Jordi Cuixart, as well as Catalonia’s Police Chief Josep Lluis Trapero Alvarez, have testified in Madrid’s court on Friday on suspicion of calls for insurgency at September protests in Barcelona.
Trapero, as well as Cuixart and Sanchez, the leaders of Catalan pro-independence groups Omnium Cultural and the Catalan National Assembly (ANC), are suspected of sedition on September 20-21, when a massive rally was held in Barcelona in front of the High Court of Justice of Catalonia and clashes between the protesters and security forces occurred. The Spanish Civil Guard officers had been raiding the Catalan government's economics department building when the protesters managed to blockade them in the building until the morning.
Under the Spanish law, calls for rebellion are punished by imprisonment for up to 15 years. The judge ruled against pre-trial detention of Trapero, Sanchez and Cuixart.
At the hearing, Sanchez said that "on September 20, we did everything possible to make mobilization a success and to avoid any incidents."
The development comes less than a week after the independence referendum was held in Catalonia on Sunday, which is not recognized by Madrid. According to the Catalan authorities, slightly more than 2 million people out of 5.3 million of those eligible to vote cast their ballots, and 90 percent of them backed independence. Almost 900 people had to seek medical help because of the clashes between referendum supporters and police on the day of the vote. Earlier in the day, a Madrid representative apologized for police violence during the referendum.
