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The secessionist leader had been out of Spain for almost five years after she fled after having participated in the independence referendum organized in Catalonia on October 1, 2017, considered illegal by the Spanish authorities and the international community. She now, she returns just after the Spanish Government withdrew the charge of sedition from the penal code, one for which she was accused.
Clara Ponsatí, one of the most visible faces of the Catalan independence movement, has returned to Spain after five years on the run and has been arrested on her return on charges of disobedience, for which the Spanish justice system continued to request her arrest.
Ponsatí was Minister of Education —a position comparable to that of a minister, but at a regional level in Spain— during the celebration of the independence referendum in Catalonia on October 1, 2017, which led to an unprecedented institutional and political crisis in the last 40 years in Spain and that was considered illegal by this nation.
Ponsatí, who is currently a deputy in the European Parliament in Brussels for the pro-independence party Junts Per Catalunya (Together for Catalonia), crossed the border in a car and was stopped by the Mossos d’Esquadra (the Catalan police) after giving a wheel press at the Association of Journalists of Catalonia, in the city of Barcelona.
In that public appearance, the independence leader launched a fight against the Spanish Supreme Court. “I am an MEP and I have immunity throughout the European Union; only in Spain am I not recognized,” she said at the press conference, in which she made it clear that she does not recognize the jurisdiction of the Court and described as “an inconsistency” that the stop.
Ponsatí’s return is part of a time when one of the crimes of which he was accused, and for which other Catalan leaders were imprisoned, has disappeared: that of sedition. This point was one of those negotiated by the current Government of Spain and by the pro-sovereignty party Esquerra Republicana de Cataluña. An agreement by which jail sentences are eliminated.
Ponsatí, who is one of the figures most aligned with former President Carles Puigdemont, will also have to testify in court for the crime of disobedience which, although it may cost her political disqualification, would not land her in prison.
The former president of the Generalitat of Catalonia has reacted to his arrival. “Welcome home Clara Ponsatí, to your beloved Barcelona. Thank you for the words, for the commitment and for the example. And thank you for not going to Madrid to voluntarily give yourself up, and help reinforce our commitment for the independence of Catalonia. See you in the plenary session of the European Parliament”, sentenced Puigdemont on his Twitter account.
Bentornada home @ClaraPonsati, to the estimated teva Barcelona. Thanks for the paragraphs, for commitments and for the example.
I thank you for not passing through Madrid to voluntarily lliurate, and for helping to reinforce our commitment to the independence of Catalonia.
Ens veiem al ple del…— krls.eth / Carles Puigdemont (@KRLS) March 28, 2023
Spain has tried on several occasions, unsuccessfully, for Ponsatí to be extradited by the United Kingdom or Belgium, countries where he normally resides. Her return comes at a particularly important moment, since she only has two months left for the local and regional elections and half a year for the national ones.
With EFE and local media
