The former Junts councilor and MEP, Clara Ponsatí, was released at 2:49 p.m. from the City of Justice in Barcelona, ??after refusing to testify, after being arrested this Monday for the search and seizure warrant pending for her participation in the 1-O.
Upon leaving, Ponsatí explained that, on the recommendation of his lawyer, he had not answered the questions that the Supreme Court instructor Pablo Llarena had sent to the duty judge in Barcelona.
The examining magistrate of the cause of the process, Pablo Llarena, had ordered that an investigative statement be taken from Clara Ponsatí, arrested again this morning by the Mossos d’Esquadra, in a duty court in Barcelona and release her. The former minister and current MEP returned to Barcelona this Monday despite the national arrest warrant issued in June.
Ponsatí first revealed his presence in Barcelona this morning on his Twitter account and then his arrest, which he described as “illegal”. “Taking advantage of the cool of the morning I have made a flight to Casa Vicenç. While we are here, Catalonia will continue to stand. Good morning, Barcelona!”, read his first tweet.
The Mossos have explained that Ponsatí has ??been arrested in Calle Compte Borrell in Barcelona. According to sources close to the MEP quoted by the ANC, Ponsatí will be transferred to the City of Justice in Barcelona.
In an order, the instructor has agreed that it be a Court of the Catalan capital who is in charge of carrying out the investigative statement, as a step after the communication of his prosecution.
Llarena has thus avoided having to be transferred to Madrid to testify before the Supreme Court or allow her to be summoned again to carry out the statement. An arrest warrant was placed on Ponsatí due to her refusal to attend the court summons to inform her that she is being prosecuted only for the crime of disobedience, once the crime of sedition was repealed.
The magistrate has agreed today in a car that it is the Court of Guard of Barcelona the one that takes an investigative statement to Ponsatí. He has attached to the resolution a list of the questions addressed to the ex-minister in this process, and adds that the detainee must then be released, leaving the arrest warrant agreed on her day without effect.
Judge Llarena makes the decision “considering that the defendant’s reluctance to submit to the unavoidable investigative statement invalidates any attempt to subpoena that seeks to achieve her appearance in freedom “, but also considering that the police conduction to the Supreme Court would mean an extension of her deprivation of liberty in a crime for which there are no penalties of this nature.
Llarena issued the national arrest warrant against Ponsatí on June 21 after verifying that the former Minister of Education did not justify her failure to appear before the judge at the end of April with a legitimate cause at the time to give an investigative statement for the crime of disobedience for which she is being prosecuted.
The ex-minister of Carles Puigdemont returned to Spain in March from her self-exile in Brussels and Scotland since 2017 by changing her procedural situation after the reform of the Penal Code that repealed at the end of 2022 the crime of sedition for which she was prosecuted and entailed high prison terms. Llarena prosecuted Ponsatí this year for disobedience that only entails a penalty of disqualification, for which there is no room for the issuance of a Euro-warrant.
On April 24, Ponsatí did not attend Llarena’s summons, alleging that that same day he had two commitments in Brussels that were “incompatible” with his summons in Madrid.
After his failure to appear, the investigating magistrate consulted the Prosecutor’s Office and the State Attorney’s Office, who were inclined to summon Ponsatí again, although Llarena finally opted to issue a national arrest warrant against her with the aim of making her available to the court and informing her of her prosecution.
Regarding the parliamentary obligations that he claimed for not appearing, Llarena stressed that Ponsatí was summoned before the Supreme Court on the morning of April 24, while the political commitments that he alleged were scheduled for the afternoon, reasonably compatible through the videoconference request.
