Catalan Trial: Day 47 summary

A new phase in the trial of the 12 Catalan pro-independence leaders began in Spain’s Supreme Court on Monday, with the next three days devoted to showing hundreds of videos of what happened in the lead-up and during the independence referendum in 2017.

Catalan Trial: click here full details of those accused, the charges, and the accusers.

Both the defence and the prosecution have asked for videos to be shown, in the first case to contradict the version of events put forward by many Spanish police officers, and in the second to counter the claims that the attitude of voters was peaceful.

The footage to be shown in court will focus on the mass protests that took place on 20 September 2017 against Spanish police raids aimed at halting the vote, and what happened on the day of the referendum itself on 1 October 2017.

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Videos were not shown during the witness stage of the trial, and in this documentary phase no commentary on the footage will be allowed. The video will merely be identified and its duration and the place where it was filmed stated.

Guardia Civil on 1 October 2017 — Spanish Guardia Civil drag a man outside a polling station in Sant Julia de Ramis, where former Catalan president Carles Puigdemont was supposed to vote, on 1 October 2017, on the day of a referendum on independence for Catalonia banned by Madrid. (Raymond Roig / AFP)

Monday’s session began with the prosecution detailing all the evidence it wishes to present, which included police reports on activities allegedly related to the misuse of public funds, and on raids of the defendants’ homes and on businesses in which material for the referendum was seized.

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After making objections to various pieces of evidence that they argued should be dismissed, in the afternoon the defence teams also presented its list of proposed evidence, ‘expressly’ asking that images and videos showing the ‘violence’ of Spanish police during the 1 October referendum be shown in court.

Whilst the Attorney General did not object to showing the videos that the defence demanded, the Solicitor General and the ‘popular prosecutors’, representing the far-right Vox party, argued that showing the videos would be unnecessary.

As Monday’s session drew to a close, the presiding judge said that on Tuesday the session would begin with the rest of the prosecution’s objections to the evidence put forward by the defence.

Catalan Trial: click here full details of those accused, the charges, and the accusers.

Click here for all articles and updates on the Catalan Trial

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