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SPAIN-CATALONIA-POLITICS-EU-LEAD
Spanish court stops Catalan separatist from taking MEP post
MADRID, June 14, 2019 (BSS/AFP) – Spain’s Supreme Court on Friday stopped
Catalonia’s jailed former vice-president Oriol Junqueras from taking up his
post as a lawmaker in the European Parliament.
The court ruled against letting Junqueras out of custody on Monday to be
able to go and swear respect to the Spanish constitution, a necessary step
for all the winners of last month’s European elections before they officially
become MEPs.
He faces a prison sentence of up to 25 years for rebellion and misuse of
public funds over his role in a failed bid to prise Catalonia from Spain in
October 2017, after a four-month-long trial that ended on Wednesday.
The sentencing of Junqueras and 11 other Catalan defendants is expected in
the autumn.
The court said Friday’s ruling wasn’t “irreversible” but just a temporary
postponement given Junqueras’s legal situation, until the sentence is passed.
The court ruled that allowing him to go to the Monday ceremony would kick
off a process that would then see him head to Brussels to be sworn in as MEP
in the European Parliament’s inaugural session on July 2.
That, the court argued, would put the whole judicial process “in
irreversible danger” as Spanish authorities would lose “jurisdictional
control” over the defendant, who has been in custody since he was arrested in
November 2017.
The court argued that Carles Puigdemont, Catalonia’s former president who
fled Spain to escape arrest — and who was also elected to the European
Parliament in elections on May 26 — was currently living in Belgium.
It noted Puigdemont announced setting up the headquarters of “the
government-in-exile of the Catalan republic” in Brussels.
BSS/AFP/RY/1706 hrs