“N“It does not appear that there can be any rational doubt about the subsumption of the report of the facts of this process within the objective scope of article 1 of the law”, indicates his lawyer Gonzalo Boye, in a document to which the Spanish agency Europa Press had access, in which he also points out that there is no reason for exclusion.
In 11 pages, Boye further explains that “any other interpretation implies a distortion of the law and a forcing of both the ‘voluntas legislatoris’ and the ‘voluntas legis'”.
The defense claims that Puigdemont did not intentionally provoke serious human rights violations.
At issue is a case related to unrest in Catalonia in 2019, including a blockade of the region’s airport, by the movement calling itself ‘Tsunami Democràtic’.
The Spanish Supreme Court considers that the issue involves possible terrorist crimes that Puigdemont may have encouraged.
The former president of the Generalitat was the protagonist of Catalonia’s unilateral declaration of independence in 2017 – known as the ‘procés’ – and has since lived in Belgium to evade Spanish justice. In the regional elections in Catalonia, brought forward to May, his party, Together for Catalonia (JxCat), came second.
In Puigdemont’s defense, there has been “a lot of speculation and abuse” of the event that took place on the day of the ‘Tsunami Democràtic’ demonstration that blocked El Prat airport and in which a man of French origin died.
“In any case, this event, which has nothing to do with the demonstration, cannot be classified as intentional or caused by anyone specific, but rather by the circumstances and medical conditions of the deceased,” he said.
As for the imputation of the crime of terrorism, the lawyer considers that, in this case, “the facts (…) cannot be classified as what the European Directive establishes as terrorist objectives, under the terms of article 3”.
“Claiming something different, about facts that are public and notorious, is nothing more than the criminalization of the exercise of fundamental rights”, he points out, alluding to the demonstrations that occurred after the ‘procés’ sentence in 2019.
Thus, the defense insists that it is appropriate to “declare amnesty for the facts for which Puigdemont is being investigated” and, therefore, requests the archiving and extinction of any possible criminal liability that was intended to be attributed to him in this process.
Furthermore, it is recalled that the Public Prosecutor’s Office of the National Court has already spoken out on the matter, declaring that “the facts clearly fall within the scope of application of the aforementioned law, better known as the amnesty law”.
At the end of May, the Spanish parliament approved an amnesty for Catalan separatists convicted or wanted by the courts for the region’s attempt at self-determination that culminated in an illegal referendum and a unilateral declaration of independence in 2017.
The amnesty was a demand made by the pro-independence parties Republican Left of Catalonia (ERC) and Together for Catalonia (JxCat), to make the current government of socialist Pedro Sánchez viable, last November.
Read Also: Spain’s Supreme Court Refuses to Pardon Puigdemont
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Source: https://www.noticiasaominuto.com/mundo/2591957/carles-puigdemont-pede-amnistia-no-caso-do-tsunami-democratico
