MADRID/BARCELONA (Reuters) - Twelve Catalan politicians go on trial on Tuesday for their role in Catalonia’s failed 2017 independence bid, putting the spotlight back on Spain’s biggest political crisis in decades which could make it flare once again.

Police vans, believed to carry Catalan separatist politicians, leave prison on their to way to the Supreme Court in Soto del Real, Spain, February 12, 2019. REUTERS/Juan Medina

To the dismay of much of the rest of Spain, Catalonia defied a judicial ban by carrying out a referendum and subsequently unilaterally declaring independence in October 2017.

There was shock at home and abroad when police used batons and rubber bullets on protesters on the day of the vote. Some of the Catalan separatist leaders were later arrested or fled the country.

The start on Tuesday of the trial will refocus attention on the region’s push for secession which so rattles Spain’s political and cultural identity.

The trial will decide if Catalan nationalist leaders stay in jail. The public prosecutor is seeking prison terms of up to 25 years on charges of rebellion and misuse of public funds. At stake are Spain’s stability, the future of Catalonia’s independence movement as well as the region’s and the central government’s image abroad.

“It’s the most important trial we have had in democracy”, Supreme Court president Carlos Lesmes told reporters on Feb. 1, referring to the return to democracy in Spain after dictator Francisco Franco’s death in 1975.

Raul Romeva, one of nine defendants jailed without bail since late 2017 facing the charge of rebellion, has made clear his view that it should end only with an acquittal.

“A (prison) sentence would weigh forever on history and on Spain’s future,” Romeva told Reuters in an interview conducted by email from jail.

At the time of his arrest, Romeva was foreign minister in Catalonia’s regional government and a member of the European Parliament.

Fellow defendants include veteran Catalan politicians Oriol Junqueras and Carme Forcadell. Notably absent from the list is former Catalan president Carles Puigdemont, who is in self-imposed exile in Belgium and thus cannot be tried in Spain.

The dozen’s fate has been a rallying cry for separatists ever since 2017, said Federico Santi, analyst at political risk consultancy Eurasia, adding that he expected, like other observers, that the trial will re-ignite tensions.

Pro-Catalan independence protests had quieted down over the past months but separatist groups have called a series of protests in Catalonia and in Madrid to coincide with the trial.

Their supporters say they are political prisoners, while Madrid accuses them of breaking the law.

Among the many witnesses will be Mariano Rajoy, who was Spanish prime minister at the time of the independence vote and its aftermath.

RIFT

Lluis Orriols, a political science professor at Universidad Carlos III in Madrid, thinks the trial will reinvigorate the separatist debate ahead of end-May local and regional elections.

“The Catalan question is activating a nationalistic and identitarian confrontation not only in Catalonia but also in all of Spain,” Orriols said.

The trial starts as the Socialist government, which controls less than a quarter of seats in parliament, faces a key vote on the 2019 budget on Wednesday. A failure to approve the budget proposal could prompt a snap parliamentary election this year.

Socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez relies on smaller parties, and in particular Catalan nationalists, to get the budget adopted. These have said they would block the bill, citing their dissatisfaction with Sanchez’s policy towards the region, despite his efforts for dialogue..

On the other hand, Spain’s right-wing parties accuse Sanchez of being too soft with Catalan separatists. On Sunday, thousands gathered in Madrid to protest Sanchez’ Catalan policies.

Civil Guard vans, believed to carry Catalan separatist politicians, leave prison on their to way to the Supreme Court in Soto del Real, Spain, February 12, 2019. REUTERS/Juan Medina

In Catalonia, support for the twelve is not unanimous. The population is largely split in two between those who favor remaining part of Spain and those wanting to secede.

After imposing direct rule on Catalonia in October 2017, Madrid called fresh regional elections that December in a bid to curb the independence movement. But the move backfired and the secessionists retained a slim majority in the Catalan assembly.

The last time a trial for rebellion was held in Spain was in 1982 after a failed military coup attempt. Its leader, found guilty of rebellion by a military court, was sentenced to 30 years of prison.</s>Madrid trial of separatists seen as the most important since Spain’s return to democracy

This article is more than 6 months old

This article is more than 6 months old

A little less than 16 months ago, the nine men and three women sitting on the plush burgundy benches of Madrid’s supreme court were ministers in the Catalan regional government and high-profile civic leaders.

On Tuesday morning, however, they stepped out of prison vans to take their places as the defendants in landmark proceedings variously described as the trial of the century, a “stress test for Spanish democracy”, and the single most important judicial event the country has seen since the end of the Franco dictatorship.

The dozen are standing trial over their alleged roles in the regional independence crisis that pitched Spain into its worst political turmoil for four decades.

Spain says 'disinformation’ surrounds Catalan separatists’ trial Read more

During the next three months, seven supreme court judges will investigate the roles the accused played in the run-up to the independence referendum in October 2017 and the subsequent unilateral declaration of independence.

Nine of the defendants – who include the former Catalan vice-president Oriol Junqueras, the former speaker of the Catalan parliament Carme Forcadell and two influential grassroots activists, Jordi Cuixart and Jordi Sànchez – are accused of rebellion, which carries a prison sentence of up to 25 years.

Other charges include sedition and the misuse of public funds.

The tone for the trial was quickly set by the heavy police and media presence, the protesters outside the court who greeted the arrival of Catalonia’s pro-independence president, Quim Torra, with cries of “Coup perpetrator!”, and by the first defence lawyer to speak.

Junqueras’ advocate, Andreu Van den Eynde, dismissed the case as a politically motivated exercise and told the court that prosecutors were trying to criminalise displays of free expression and curtail the defendants’ right to argue for self-determination.

“No international or EU law blocks the secession of a regional entity; self-determination is synonymous with peace and not war,” he said.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest 11 September 2017: an aerial view of people waving a giant banner saying ‘Independence now’ during a demonstration in Barcelona. Photograph: Roser Vilallonga/AFP/Getty Images

Van den Eynde, who is also representing the former Catalan foreign minister Raül Romeva, said his clients’ freedom of expression had been violated.

“The political arena is a free space,” he said. “Freedom of expression extends even to those ideas that shock and offend.”

He described the complicated legal process as a “procedural vaudeville” and said it was intended to put Catalan independence itself on trial.

Jordi Pina, a lawyer representing the Catalan MP and former civil society leader Jordi Sànchez, called for the court to allow testimony from King Felipe, arguing that the Spanish monarch’s controversial speech two days after the referendum had been cited in prosecution documents.

The king had accused Catalan authorities of attempting to break “the unity of Spain” and warned that their push for independence could risk the country’s social and economic stability.

Pina also urged the court to reconsider its decision not to allow testimony from the former Catalan president Carles Puigdemont via videolink from Brussels.

The trial – which began shortly after 10.20am on Tuesday and is being broadcast on television – will focus on the Puigdemont government’s decision to hold the referendum despite repeated warnings that it would violate the constitution, which stresses the “indissoluble unity of the Spanish nation”.

Although Catalan pro-independence parties have never managed to win 50% of the vote in the regional parliament, and although polls consistently show Catalonia is roughly evenly split over the independence issue, Puigdemont’s administration chose to press ahead with the vote.

Pro-independence parties managed to get a law paving the way for the referendum passed in the regional parliament in early September 2017, despite furious objections from opposition MPs, who complained that usual procedures had been disregarded.

The law was subsequently suspended and eventually struck down by Spain’s constitutional court.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest 14 July 2018: Pictures of the Catalan leaders Carme Forcadel, Anna Gabriel, Carles Puigdemont, Marta Rovira, Oriol Junqueras, Jordi Turull and Clara Ponsati are held up by pro-independence protesters in Barcelona. Photograph: Josep Lago/AFP/Getty Images

But the Catalan government opted to hold the referendum, which was marred by violence. Spanish police officers raided polling stations, charged crowds with batons and fired rubber bullets in their attempts to stop the vote.

According to the Catalan government, about 2.3 million of Catalonia’s 5.3 million registered voters – 43% – took part in the referendum, and about 90% of participants backed independence. The vote was largely boycotted by unionist Catalans.

On 27 October, shortly after secessionist Catalan MPs voted to declare independence, the Spanish government of the then prime minister, Mariano Rajoy, won senate backing to sack Puigdemont and his cabinet and assume direct control of Catalonia.

Defence lawyers will seek to undermine the rebellion charges. They will point out that, under Spanish law, rebellion consists of “revolting violently and publicly”, and argue that none of those charged with the offence engaged in violence.

Speaking to the Guardian and a small group of other European reporters in Madrid on the eve of the trial, the Catalan president, Quim Torra, criticised the charges.

“The only violence we saw throughout September and October [2017] was from the Spanish police,” he said. “They tried to stop citizens from going to vote peacefully on 1 October. But this has all been turned on its head. There was no violence, everyone saw there was no violence.”

The case will once again bring international attention to the enduring tensions between the Madrid government and the pro-independence regional government of Catalonia.

The president of the supreme court, Carlos Lesmes, has described the proceedings as “the most important trial that we’ve held since democracy [returned]”.

But on Monday night, Torra said: “As far as we’re concerned, Spanish justice has pretty much zero credibility.”

His sacked predecessor, meanwhile, called the trial a “stress test for Spanish democracy” and a test for the country’s judiciary.

Speaking in Berlin on Tuesday, Puigdemont described his former colleagues on trial as “honourable, innocent, democratic people,” and insisted there were “no criminal violations of the Spanish criminal law”.

The start of the trial led some Catalan pro-independence protesters to briefly block several roads before dawn, setting fire to tyres and holding up traffic. Protests were called in Barcelona for 7pm.</s>BERLIN, Feb 12 (Reuters) - A trial of 12 Catalan political leaders in Madrid on Tuesday is a stress test for Spain’s judicial system and its democracy, former leader of Catalonia, living in self-imposed exile in Belgium, Carles Puigdemont said during a conference in Berlin.

The political leaders face charges of rebellion, sedition and misuse of public funds for their part in an illegal declaration of independence by the northeastern region in October, 2017. (Reporting by Paul Day; Editing by Jesus Aguado)</s>The trial of 12 Catalan politicians in Madrid on Tuesday threatens to reopen the divisions in Spain between those who oppose independence for Catalonia, and those in the province who want to secede.

In Spain, a trial begins today for 12 Catalan separatists. They helped organize a vote for independence in 2017. Lucia Benavides reports.

LUCIA BENAVIDES: Dozens of pro-independence Catalonians chanting liberty for political prisoners gathered outside of a prison in a small town outside Barcelona earlier this month as jailed separatist leaders were transferred to Spain's capital, Madrid. They're protesting what they believe to be a violation of freedom of expression after the Spanish government imposed direct rule on the region in retaliation to the Catalan government declaring independence, which goes against the Spanish Constitution.

The nine Catalan secessionists and three others that are free on bail will appear in court today in what is said to be the most important trial since Spain's return to democracy in the late 1970s. They face charges of rebellion, sedition, disobedience and misuse of public funds, which could bring sentences of up to 25 years. The separatists are seeking more autonomy. One of the main issues at hand is the control of taxes in the prosperous northeast region.

BENAVIDES: Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez told the Council of Europe last week that Spain is a modern and advanced democracy and promised a fair trial. A harsh sentence could fuel a Spanish nationalist movement, which has been growing since the conflict began in October 2017. Journalism professor Concha Perez Curiel from the University of Seville says this has given rise to the far-right party Vox, which entered mainstream politics in December when they won 12 parliamentary seats in the southern region of Andalusia.

CONCHA PEREZ CURIEL: (Through interpreter) Vox will unify Spain. They will save us from the bad guys. That's how the media has presented it.

BENAVIDES: Many are concerned that this populist movement is seen as a cure to the falling-apart of Spain. The trial is expected to last months.</s>A particularly contentious aspect of the legal process has been the preventive custody of Cuixart, Sánchez, Junqueras, and six others, who have all waited in jail for a trial whose date was only announced days before it was due to begin. The Spanish authorities have argued that their incarceration was due to flight risk—seven Catalan leaders fled abroad after the referendum to Belgium, Scotland and Switzerland—and to prevent continued illegal activities. But the trial delays since then have made the measure look increasingly excessive.

Another controversial feature is the rebellion charge against nine defendants. Rebellion is legally defined as “rising up, violently and publicly” against the Spanish state— the last conviction followed an attempted coup d’état in 1981. The Catalan independence movement, despite its many faults, has been characterized by peaceful protest. There have been some violent incidents, such as police cars being vandalized or a well-known unionist journalist being punched while he was live on air, but these have been rare, and never linked to the movement’s leaders themselves.

Ironically, the most violent scenes of the independence push were caused by Spanish riot police on the day of the 2017 referendum. Targeting several of the improvised voting stations, they smashed windows and doors, dragging some voters away and beating others. The Spanish interior ministry has refused to probe the actions of its police officers on that day. Barcelona’s leftist city hall has brought a lawsuit against 33 of them.

The Spanish judiciary does have a history of overreaction. The Audiencia Nacional, a court dedicated to countering terrorism and organized crime, has in the last two years issued jail sentences against several hip-hop artists due to the content of their songs and social media accounts. Among them is Josep Miquel Arenas, a young rapper known as Valtònyc, who was given a three-and-a-half-year sentence for glorifying terrorism and insulting the monarchy in his angry, anti-establishment songs. Shortly before beginning his sentence last year Arenas fled to Belgium. The Spanish authorities are now trying to extradite him. Rapper Pablo Hasél was given a two-year jail sentence on similar charges last year, for the content of several tweets and the lyrics to one of his songs. The sentence was subsequently reduced to nine months on appeal.

Joaquim Bosch, a magistrate and outspoken critic of the Spanish justice system, has warned of “an obvious erosion of freedom of speech” in Spain. Jueces para la Democracia (Judges for Democracy), the progressive magistrates’ association he represents, argues that Spanish laws are too vague on issues of terrorism or hate speech, giving free rein to over-zealous investigators.

The recent spate of freedom of speech cases is grist to the mill of the Catalan independence movement, which runs a slick PR machine. Arenas, for example, has been photographed several times posing with former Catalan president Carles Puigdemont—who oversaw the 2017 independence referendum and fled to Belgium shortly afterward—since they both left Spain. In addition, there have been a handful of other cases which have cast in doubt the judiciary’s independence from political interference.

In November, the Supreme Court performed an unprecedented U-turn. Having recently ruled that banks, not customers, should pay a mortgage tax, the court changed its mind, drawing accusations that it had caved in to pressures from the country’s financial powers.

Weeks later, in a separate case, Supreme Court magistrate Manuel Marchena withdrew his candidacy to head up Spain’s judicial governing body. A leaked text message from a conservative senator had emerged, apparently gloating at the fact that Marchena’s appointment would allow the right-wing Popular Party to control the court “from behind the scenes.” Marchena will nonetheless preside the panel of judges handling the Catalan independence leaders’ trial.

As a result, it has been easy for secessionists to present their conflict with Spain as one upholding democracy against repression. Yet in pursuing their dream of an independent republic, Catalan nationalists have occasionally neglected their much-vaunted democratic values.

In 2015, the pro-independence Catalan government treated a regional election as a plebiscite on the secession issue. In it, pro-independence parties won a narrow majority of seats in the regional parliament but fell short of a majority of the popular vote. Nonetheless, secessionists pushed ahead with their divisive roadmap as if they had secured an overwhelming mandate. Then, in September 2017, the pro-independence majority rode roughshod over parliamentary protocol to ram through laws laying the groundwork for the October referendum.

For Joan Coscubiela, a member of the Catalan parliament for the leftist Catalunya Sí que es Pot (Catalonia Yes We Can) coalition at the time, those parliamentary sessions “ended up installing in people’s minds the idea that democracy means the majority can do whatever they like, even if it means breaking the rules [and] trampling over the rights of the minority.”

Many Catalans have been dismayed at how the issue of separation from Spain has dominated their region’s political debate, distracting attention from more urgent matters, such as public healthcare and education.

The upcoming trial could see the figureheads of Catalonia’s failed independence bid pay a high price for such single-mindedness. But Spain’s judiciary will be up for evaluation as well. Spanish authorities have rejected calls for international observers, insisting that the justice system offers the guarantees and transparency necessary for such a high-pressure legal process. This trial’s ability to deliver on that promise could tell us a good deal about the health of Spanish democracy—and whether or not worries about it are justified.</s>Twelve Catalan politicians go on trial today for their role in Catalonia’s failed 2017 independence bid, putting the spotlight back on Spain’s biggest political crisis in decades. Catalonia defied a judicial ban by carrying out a referendum and subsequently unilaterally declaring independence in October 2017.

There was shock at home and abroad when police used batons and rubber bullets on protesters on the day of the vote. Some of the Catalan separatist leaders were arrested or fled.

The trial will refocus attention on the region’s push for secession which so rattles Spain’s identity.

The trial will decide if Catalan nationalist leaders stay in jail. The public prosecutor is seeking prison terms of up to 25 years on charges of rebellion and misuse of public funds. At stake are Spain’s stability, the future of Catalonia’s independence movement as well as the region’s and the central government’s image abroad.

“It’s the most important trial we have had in democracy,” Supreme Court president Carlos Lesmes said, referring to the return to democracy in Spain after dictator Francisco Franco’s death in 1975.

Raul Romeva, one of nine defendants jailed without bail since late 2017, has made clear his view it should end only with an acquittal. “A (prison) sentence would weigh forever on history and on Spain’s future,” Romeva said.

At the time of his arrest, Romeva was foreign minister in Catalonia’s regional government and a member of the European Parliament.

Fellow defendants include veteran Catalan politicians Oriol Junqueras and Carme Forcadell. Notably absent from the list is former Catalan president Carles Puigdemont, who is in self-imposed exile in Belgium.

Pro-Catalan independence protests had quietened down over the past months, but separatist groups have called a series of protests in Catalonia and in Madrid to coincide with the trial. Their supporters say they are political prisoners, while Madrid accuses them of breaking the law.

Among the many witnesses will be Mariano Rajoy, who was Spanish prime minister at the time of the independence vote and its aftermath.

In Catalonia, support for the 12 is not unanimous. The population is largely split between those who favour remaining part of Spain and those wanting to secede.

After imposing direct rule on Catalonia in October 2017, Madrid called regional elections that December to curb the independence movement. This backfired and the secessionists retained a slim majority in the Catalan assembly. Reuters</s>MADRID: Catalan separatist leaders accused of rebellion for trying to make their region independent from Spain launched their defence on Tuesday at the start of a long-awaited trial.

Sitting on benches in the ornate chamber of Madrid’s Supreme Court, the defendants faced a row of judges and a Spanish flag in proceedings broadcast live on television. Twelve defendants are in the dock over an independence referendum, held on October 1, 2017, in defiance of a court ban, and a short-lived declaration of independence.

Nine of them are charged with rebellion and three face lesser charges of disobedience and misuse of public funds. The independence bid sparked Spain’s deepest political crisis since the transition to democracy in the 1970s after the death of dictator Francisco Franco.

"This case targets political dissidence," said Andreu Van den Eynde, the lawyer for two defendants including Catalonia’s former vice president Oriol Junqueras, who could face up to 25 years in jail.

The lawyer accused authorities of violating the defendants’ fundamental rights. Spain has been forced to defend its judiciary against criticism. In a rare move, Spanish embassies in several European capitals and further afield briefed reporters on Monday and Tuesday, handing out a file entitled "12 falsehoods about Spain" to refute common separatist claims such as the lack of impartiality of all judges.

"These people aren’t there (on trial) because of what they think but because of what they did," said Jorge Notivoli Marin, Spain’s charge d’affaires in Brussels. "It’s very important for us to show that we’re a country that has nothing to hide, that follows the law and procedure." Many Spaniards support the trial, shocked by the actions of Catalonia’s regional executive in October 2017.

But separatists in Catalonia have dismissed the trial as a politically-motivated "farce". Protests have been called for in Barcelona, the Catalan capital, at 7:00 pm (1800 GMT).

Carles Puigdemont, Catalonia’s former president who fled Spain days after the independence declaration on October 27, is not among the defendants. Spain does not try suspects in absentia for major offences. Speaking from Berlin, Puigdemont said the trial was a "stress test for Spanish democracy".

He called on the international community for help, asking the European Union why it was more concerned with Venezuela than Madrid. In his absence, the trial’s main protagonist is his former deputy Junqueras, who opted to remain in Spain.

The 11 other defendants include members of Catalonia’s former executive, the two leaders of powerful pro-independence associations, ANC and Omnium Cultural, and the former president of the Catalan parliament. They could face jail terms of seven to 17 years. The nine defendants charged with rebellion have been in pre-trial detention for months, some of them for more than a year.</s>The divisive issue of Catalan independence strikes again in Spain, where a trial of jailed provincial leaders started this week. The government is on the brink of collapse without the support of Catalan lawmakers in parliament.

Catalonia, Spain's autonomous northern region with a long history of pro-independence sentiment, attempted to secede in October 2017. Over 40 percent of Catalans turned out for the referendum and voted in a landslide in favour of independence, which Madrid refused to recognize and attempted to stop through police action. The provincial government then declared Catalonia an independent state. The Spanish government moved to quash the bid with force, arresting 12 officials and sending others fleeing.

Trial of separatists and test of democracy

The failed attempt is back in the public focus in Spain this month for two reasons. One is that the long-expected trial of the 12 arrested separatist leaders which began on Tuesday. The charges against them vary from misappropriation of public funds (for printing ballots and holding the poll) to sedition and rebellion, and may result in up to 25 months in jail.

The accusations against the Catalan leaders are based on the fact that the Spanish constitution, which was adopted following the death of dictator Francisco Franco in 1975, forbids any part of the country from seceding.

The defense is expected to argue that the referendum was a peaceful exercise of Catalonia's right to self-determination and that the Spanish constitution is contrary to European values and laws in this regard. Rebellion however implies the use of violence, which was done by the Madrid-dispatch police against Catalans, not by them.

Ex-Catalonia chief Carles Puigdemont, who fled to Spain, calls the trial a test of Spanish democracy and independence of its judiciary. Carlos Lesmes, the president of the nation's Supreme Court, agrees the proceedings are "the most important trial that we've held since democracy [returned]".

The trial begins after a long wait for the defendants, who even went on a hunger strike last December, accusing the Spanish government of stalling their prosecution and obstructing their attempts to secure scrutiny over the process from the European Union. The trial is expected to last for several months at least.

Days before the trial started thousands of opponents of Catalan independence staged a rally in Madrid demanding that the government stand up to the separatists. Organized by Spain's right-wing parties, they demanded that Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez rejected the demands for a new referendum from Catalan lawmakers, whose support is necessary to keep his minority government afloat.

The socialist-led cabinet of Sanchez took power last April, replacing, through a confidence vote, the conservatives of Mariano Rajoy, under whose watch the Catalan referendum happened. While Sanchez supported the way his predecessor handled the crisis, he also advocated dialogue with Catalan nationalists.

His government also relies on Catalan support to pass laws and made several concessions to them lately – which prompted the right-wing opposition to call their supporters onto the streets at the weekend. But what some opposition politicians branded as treason by Sanchez, was apparently considered not enough by the Catalans themselves.

The tacit alliance is set to fail on Wednesday, when the government's 2019 budget proposal is to be voted on in the parliament. Minority regional parties, including the Catalans, refused to support the crucial piece of legislation.

Sanchez earlier put his political survival at the stake, stating that if the proposal is not adopted, he would call a snap election in mid-April. Neither side seems to be willing to yield, with means Spain's political turmoil is only likely to escalate.

If you like this story, share it with a friend!</s>Llius Gene, AFP | Supporters of Catalan Independence demonstrate in Catalonia to demand the liberation of 12 jailed separatists on February 1, 2019.

As 12 Catalan separatist leaders prepare to go on trial in Madrid, Spain has been forced to defend the independence and impartiality of its courts.

Catalan separatists have dismissed the high-profile trial which begins Tuesday at Spain’s Supreme Court as a “farce” whose outcome is already pre-determined.

Not so, says the government, which has published a thick file to show Spain’s justice system is just as fair as its European counterparts, citing rankings by the European Commission, the European Court of Human Rights and Transparency International.

Supreme Court President Carlos Lesmes points out that if the justice system really was not independent, the king’s brother-in-law would not be in jail for corruption, nor would a court ruling have sparked a no-confidence motion that brought down the conservative government in June.

“I think this will be the most important trial we’ve had in democracy,” he told reporters before the start of the trial.

“It’s a challenge because there’s been a big smear campaign of Spain’s judiciary.”

Spain has had a long-standing public perception that its judiciary is biased.

In the EU’s 2018 “Justice Scoreboard”, Spain came sixth to last among 28 member states for public perception of the independence of judges and courts, behind Poland and Hungary.

Despite repeated denials, the conservative government in power at the time of Catalonia’s attempt to break from Spain in October 2017 and the Socialists that took power in June have each been accused of exerting pressure on judges.

“It is the state which will end up in the dock,” one of the main defendants on trial, former Catalan vice president Oriol Junqueras, predicted from pre-trial detention.

Junqueras and 11 others are on trial for their role in the attempt to break from Spain.

Separatists call them “political prisoners” who are suffering oppression of the kind experienced in Spain during Francisco Franco’s 1939-75 dictatorship.

In a ruling, Spain’s Supreme Court said the group were not on trial for their ideas.

The majority of the defendants were “political leaders who were members of the government of an autonomous region and therefore the highest representatives of the (Spanish) state in Catalonia”, it said.

The government has also had to defend itself from accusations that it put pressure on judges during the criminal investigation phase.

Public prosecutors accuse nine of the 12 of rebellion, which implies the use of violence a key charge which has divided Spanish legal experts.

But the state attorney decided in November to only accuse them of the lesser crime of sedition.

This has led conservative opposition parties, which take a hard line against Catalan separatism, to accuse the government of “unacceptable interference” in the case.

They suspect the move was part of a bid by Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez’s minority government to win the much-needed support in parliament of Catalan separatist parties for its 2019 budget.

Justice Minister Dolores Delgado, though, said Spain’s new state attorney took the decision “without the government imposing anything”.

In November, a conservative senator, Ignacio Cosido, also contributed to perception that the judiciary is biased.

On WhatsApp, he welcomed the promotion of Manuel Marchena a judge seen as close to the conservatives who will be presiding at the separatists’ trial at the head of the Supreme Court.

Cosido said it would allow the conservatives to “control” the court “behind the scenes.”

After the controversy this generated, Marchena gave up the promotion.

Courts in Belgium, Germany and Switzerland have also contributed to doubts about Spain’s legal system by refusing to extradite separatists who had escaped after the declaration of independence.

A German court for instance last year refused to send former Catalan leader Carles Puigdemont back to Spain on rebellion charges.

A Belgian court meanwhile has agreed to consider a civil lawsuit filed by Puigdemont’s lawyers against Supreme Court judge Pablo Llarena, accusing him of [lacking] impartiality in the case against the Catalan separatist leaders.

Spain has not publicly criticised these decisions.

“Our best communication campaign will be the trial,” said Lesmes.</s>MADRID — The simmering conflict over Catalan independence roared back to the center of Spanish attention on Tuesday, as 12 people went on trial for their roles in the botched secession attempt of 2017, and Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez scrambled to keep the issue from toppling his government.

The eagerly anticipated trial before the Spanish Supreme Court in Madrid has drawn enormous attention and is being broadcast live on national television, but it could soon be overshadowed by the political crisis unfolding just blocks away, in Parliament.

On Wednesday, Mr. Sánchez’s minority Socialist government faces a crucial parliamentary vote on his national budget. If a majority of lawmakers reject it, including Catalan lawmakers who have so far backed the prime minister, he will almost certainly be forced to call elections.

With Spain’s government hanging in the balance, the Supreme Court is under intense pressure to demonstrate that it can remain impartial and above politics in a case that has ignited passions and recriminations. The Catalan separatist leaders were indicted on charges that include rebellion, after holding an independence referendum and then declaring independence in October 2017 — moves the Spanish courts ruled unconstitutional.
The trial of Catalonia independence leaders starts at the Spanish Supreme Court.