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Spain orders jail for Catalan leaders

A European arrest warrant for Catalonia's sacked president has been issued by Spain after he missed a court hearing for charges of sedition and rebellion.

A European arrest warrant for Catalonia's sacked president has been issued by Spain after he missed a court hearing for charges of sedition and rebellion. Photo: Getty

A Spanish judge has ordered nine Catalan secessionist leaders be held pending a potential trial over the region’s independence push as prosecutors ask for an European arrest warrant be issued for ousted Catalan president Carles Puigdemont.

A High Court source said the arrest warrant for Puigdemont, who is in Belgium, would “most likely” be issued on Friday.

Catalan political parties and civic groups denounced the decision to “jail the legitimate government of Catalonia” and hundreds of people gathered outside the Catalan regional parliament on Thursday calling for them to be freed.

Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy sacked Puigdemont and his government last Friday, hours after the Catalan parliament made a unilateral declaration of independence, a vote boycotted by the opposition and declared illegal by Spanish courts.

Puigdemont’s lawyer in Belgium said his client would stay away from Spain while the political climate was “not good”; but he would co-operate with the courts.

“If they ask, he will co-operate with Spanish and Belgian justice,” lawyer Paul Bekaert told Reuters after Puigdemont and his four associates ignored an order to appear before the High Court to answer charges of rebellion, sedition and misuse of public funds relating to the region’s secessionist drive.

Shortly after the judge’s ruling, Puigdemont said on Twitter that “the gang of 155” – a reference to the article of the Spanish constitution Rajoy invoked to enforce direct rule in Catalonia – wanted to jail him and his dismissed cabinet.

“The legitimate government of Catalonia has been sent to jail for its ideas and for having been faithful to the mandate approved by the parliament of Catalonia,” he said.

The jailings of the secessionist leaders and Puigdemont’s flight to Belgium make it difficult for leading figures from the independence movement to stand in a snap election in the wealthy region called by the Spanish government for December 21.

Puigdemont said on Tuesday he would go back to Spain only if given unspecified guarantees by the Spanish government. His flight appears to have cost some support for his cause at home.

“President, enough is enough,” the influential Catalan newspaper el Peridico, which has been sceptical of the case for independence, said on its front page on Wednesday.

Following a tumultuous month, attention is gradually turning to the December vote. Protests taking place in central Barcelona on Thursday to support secessionist leaders as they testified in Madrid failed to attract a big crowd.

Several hundred people took part in another protest called after the nine leaders were ordered held in custody, many fewer than the hundreds of thousands who staged several demonstrations for independence over the past two months.

– AAP

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