After four and a half hours in the premises of the Ciutat de la Justícia, the former Minister of Education during the Government that carried out 1-O, Clara Ponsatí, has been released after being arrested in Barcelona and brought before the judge on call. The lawyers’ defense had filed a habeas corpus before Supreme Court examining magistrate Pablo Llarena to determine within a maximum period of 24 hours the legality of her detention and that it would have meant her transfer to Madrid. But the duty judge has denied the request.
In a statement, the Supreme Court explained that Llarena has agreed to the provisional release of Ponsatí and that it “revokes the arrest warrant as well as the rebellion agreed at the time.”
The magistrate has summoned the MEP for April 24 at 11 in the morning in the Supreme Court to notify her of her prosecution for a crime of disobedience. In addition, Llarena has established that she designate an address and telephone number where she can be reached and that she appear before this judicial body as many times as she is called.
Likewise, it warns him that “failure to comply with the appeal will lead to the modification of his personal situation and his possible leadership by the public force.”
In any case, Ponsatí has ??been received by some two hundred demonstrators who were waiting for her at the gates of the Ciutat de la Justícia. The protesters came to block the Gran Via and shouted “October 1, neither forget nor forgive”, “Independence”, “Aragonès resignation” and “Freedom for Clara Ponsatí”, in addition to singing Els segadors on several occasions.
Several politicians from the pro-independence orbit have come to the City of Justice, especially from Junts per Catalunya and the CUP, such as the general secretary of the post-convergents, Jordi Turull, the president of the JxCat parliamentary group and the spokesperson Albert Batet and Josep Rivers, in addition to the deputies of the anti-capitalists Eulàlia Reguant and Carles Riera. On behalf of ERC, the vice-president of the Parliament with functions of president, Alba Vergés, and the deputy in the Catalan Chamber José Rodríguez were present.
After being informed of the prosecution, Ponsatí would foreseeably go before the examining magistrate of the Supreme Court Pablo Llarena to take a statement from him. It is expected that just after the ex-minister -who has assured in any case that she would not appear and force a new arrest- will be released, since the crime of sedition declined once the Penal Code was reformed at the end of last year and the The crime of disobedience of which she is accused does not entail prison sentences. In addition, the European courts provisionally preserved Ponsatí’s parliamentary immunity due to her status as a member of the European Parliament.
The Mossos d’Esquadra have moved Ponsatí in the middle of the afternoon to the City of Justice. The action has earned criticism from the CUP. “The police violated Clara Ponsatí’s parliamentary immunity and arrested her on the orders of Llarena. Pere Aragonès and Joan Ignasi Elena, will you take responsibility and reverse this violation of democratic rights?” cried Riera, from the CUP.
The Minister of the Interior, Joan Ignasi Elena, in an institutional statement, expressed surprise that the MEP had been “arrested” for a crime that does not entail imprisonment and has replied that the Mossos have acted at the judge’s orders, “as is their duty when acting as judicial police, how could it be otherwise, and everyone knows this”.
Be that as it may, the minister has celebrated that the reform of the Penal Code “makes it easier for the Spanish justice to have to release her once she makes a statement.”
