SPAIN’S attempt to extradite Clara Ponsati is an abuse of the system, and a distraction from the “brutal” behaviour of the police during last October’s referendum on Catalonian independence, the exiled politician’s legal team has said.

Ponsati was in Edinburgh Sheriff court today, with her lawyers “utterly refuting” Spain's charges of rebellion and misuse of €1.6 million (£1.39m) of public funds.

The academic, who served as Catalonia’s education minister, fled to Belgium with Carles Puigdemont and three other cabinet members when Madrid sacked the regional government and imposed direct rule after the October 27 declaration of independence.

Spain's supreme court, withdrew their international arrest warrants in December, making it safe for the politicians to travel.

Ponsati returned to the job she’d held before being appointed to government, at St Andrew’s University.

The professor had been in Fife just two weeks when the warrants were reactivated.

A large crowd of supporters gathered outside Edinburgh Sheriff Court ahead of today's preliminary hearing.

Many waved Catalan flags, othes held up signs saying “hands off our Clara”.

There were huge cheers when Ponsati and her solicitor, Aamer Anwar, made their way into the court. 

QC Gordon Jackson represented Ponsati, telling Sheriff Nigel Ross that what Spain was doing was political, not legal.

"The fundamental position which is taken here is the abuse of process," he said.

"This is wrapping up in legalistic form something which is purely a political decision.

"It is an attempt to squeeze it into some legal formulae and we intend to show that's exactly what is happening here."

Ross agreed to an eight-day trial starting on July 30 with preliminary hearings on May 15 and July 5.

Aamer read out a statement afterwards, saying that Ponsati would “fight the extradition on many grounds".

He said there would be six thrusts to the legal argument deployed in defence of the academic.

Firstly, they would “challenge the validity of the warrant as the facts do not show that any offence has been committed by Clara Ponsati”.

They would then argue that the crime of violent rebellion does not exist in the law of Scotland, that the warrant has been issued for the purpose of prosecuting Ponsati for her political opinions, and that if extradited she would be unable to get a fair trial.

Anwar said the legal team would also suggest that Ponsati’s extradition would be “unjust and oppressive and incompatible with her human rights, which will include her rights not to be subjected to pre-trial detention without time limit, right to a fair trial, freedom of expression, freedom of assembly and association.”

Finally, he added, “we will submit that Spain has systematically abused the process of the extradition treaty to set out allegations which they know cannot amount to crimes in their courts”.

The solicitor pointed out that in the 19-page warrant put together by the Spanish authorities, that they had accused Ponsati of "orchestrating violence", yet failed to “specify a single act of violence or incitement attributable to her”.

“Unsurprisingly, there is no mention of the actions of several thousand Spanish police, and 6000 state forces, who are accused of carrying out brutal, unprovoked attacks on peaceful Catalans at over 2000 polling stations,” he added.

“In a civilised democracy police officers are the guardians of law and order yet the Spanish police brutality on [the day of the Catalan independence referendum] has been compared to the dark days of Francoism.

“To date, not one single Spanish police officer has been arrested or prosecuted for their violent actions against a defenceless population and we submit that this warrant is a grotesque distortion of the truth.”

A court in Schleswig-Holstein in Germany last week rejected Spain’s extradition request for Puigdemont on the charge of rebellion for his role in Catalonia’s campaign for independence.

It released the former president of the generalitat on bail and said extradition to Spain was possible on the lesser charge of misuse of public funds.