Puigdemont asks Llarena to annul the national arrest warrant issued against him

He requests that in the event that his appeal is not upheld, a series of preliminary questions be raised before the CJEU

MADRID, 20 Ene. (EUROPA PRESS) -

The former Catalan president Carles Puigdemont has appealed the order by which the instructor of the 'procés', Pablo Llarena, prosecuted him for alleged crimes of disobedience and embezzlement, urging the magistrate of the Supreme Court (TS) to revoke his decision and leave without effect the national search, arrest and imprisonment order issued against him.

In a letter, to which Europa Press has had access, the defense of the independence leader - in charge of the lawyer Gonzalo Boye - has claimed that, in the event that his appeal is not upheld, it be sent to the Court of Justice of the Union Court (CJEU) a battery of questions for a preliminary ruling. Among other issues, he urges you to ask yourself if the Supreme Court is the competent body to bring a case against a MEP, as is the case of Puigdemont, who enjoys immunity as a member of the European Parliament.

Llarena was forced to reformulate the prosecution and the search and arrest warrants against Puigdemont and the other fugitives from 1-O to adjust to the penal reform that came into force on January 12. That same day, the TS magistrate agreed to change the disappeared sedition for disobedience, ruling out that the facts fit into the new crime of aggravated public disorder, and to maintain the aggravated embezzlement, discarding the new attenuated versions.

The former Catalan councilor and MEP of Junts Clara Ponsatí was the first to fight Llarena's order. Initially prosecuted for sedition, she alleges that she cannot be charged "suddenly" for disobedience, to which she states that, in any case, the crime would be prescribed.

The also former counselor Lluís Puig also challenged the judicial decision to request Llarena to withdraw this last crime from the sedition and embezzlement that he is accused of. He alleges that the alleged embezzlement is based on the expenses of ballots, the Electoral census and summons to the members of the electoral tables that the Generalitat did not pay, according to the own account of the sentence of the 'procés'.

Llarena's order has also been appealed by the prosecutors of the 'procés' and the State Attorney's Office. In both cases, they ask the instructor to prosecute Puigdemonr for aggravated public disorder, in addition to aggravated disobedience and embezzlement.