• Catalonia: Supreme Court would have condemned independence for sedition
  • Catalonia, Puigdemont from prison: "I will not give up"
  • The independentist Quim Torra is the new president of Catalonia

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October 14, 2019The Spanish Supreme Court condemned the former vice president of the Generalitat, the Catalan government, Oriol Junqueras, to 13 years in prison. Junqueras is the leader of the Esquerra Republicana party and was the deputy of the Catalan president Carles Puigdemont, in exile abroad, who called the "procés" sentence an "aberration".

The sentence, issued by the judge Manuel Marchena, comes after the trial started last February for the events related to the independentist referendum of October 1, 2017. The independence leaders were found guilty of sedition and embezzlement, or attack on public order. The most serious offense was therefore excluded, that of an attack on the Spanish Constitution, which was requested by the Public Prosecutor.

12-year sentences for former ministers Raul Romeva, Jordi Turull and Dolors Bassa, while the other two ministers Josep Rull and Joaquim Forn at 10 and a half years.

Carme Forcadell, former president of the Catalan Parliament, was instead sentenced to 11 and a half years.

The "lowest" sentence, 9 years, was imposed on the leader of the ANC (Catalan National Assembly) Jordi Sànchez and the former head of the cultural association Òmnium, Jordi Cuixart.

Instead, the court acquitted three other defendants, Santi Vila, Carles Mundó and Meritxell Borràs, who are not in prison and therefore will not go to prison.