AN officer of Spain’s Civil Guard who was involved in raids on Catalan Government offices ahead of the 2017 independence referendum has told the trial of pro-independence leaders that he broke windows in one of the police vehicles as protesters gathered outside the economy ministry.

The police raid on the ministry came 10 days before the poll and was targeted by thousands of protesters.

READ MORE: Catalonia indy trial jail terms have already been decided, says lawyer

Originally, three Guardia Civil vehicles were reported as damaged, but prosecutors have now revised the figures upwards – as high as seven. They are anxious to prove the pro-independence leaders were responsible for violence during the demonstrations – a key requirement to prove the charge of rebellion.

However, under questioning from Jordi Pina, representing grassroots group leader Jordi Sanchez, the witness – identified as agent B35974S – admitted that not all the damage was caused by protesters.

Pina asked him: “When you left the ministry in the small hours of the morning to go up to the police vehicles, did you use a mace to break any of the windows to verify what was inside the police vehicle?”

B35974S, who was in charge of his team’s security, replied: “Yes, two,” adding that firearms were among the items left unguarded inside the vehicle.

Pina stressed the differences between the agent’s evidence yesterday and what he had said during the investigation. He also challenged claims of the “very high levels of risk” at the ministry, where decorators had continued working as normal inside the building.

Daniel Baena, a Guardia Civil officer, told the trial he had been investigating the independence movement since 2015, and in the weeks before the indyref, Catalonia had become “a powder keg”. He said: “We knew that any small conflict could escalate out of control.

“We found out that the referendum was not their goal, but a cornerstone for a unilateral declaration of independence or to put the Spanish state in a situation of conflict.”

Meanwhile, Spain’s legal system is again under the spotlight in another case that followed a bar brawl between a group of eight young people and two off-duty civil guards and their girlfriends.

It happened 18 months ago in the northern town of Alsasua, in Navarre, near the Basque Country in northern Spain, where thousands of people have taken part in a demonstration against sentences – ranging from two to 13 years – dished out last year.

A judge who labelled the “attack”

a “terrorist crime” had called for sentences of 375 years in total.

The “Alsasua incident” started in a bar where two civil guards and their partners had gone for a drink in the early hours of the morning and had allegedly been targeted by the group of local youths. The brawl then moved from the bar into the street and ended with one of the guards sustaining the most serious injury of the incident, a broken ankle.

In its conclusion, the court said the youths’ attack had been driven by “radicalisation, animosity and intolerance” towards the security forces in general. But it did not accept the prosecution contention it had been of a “terrorist” nature.

Protesters, including Basque and international activists, will gather at the Madrid court next month demanding that the youths are given a fair trial.

Organisers estimated that up to 60,000 people took part in a demonstration this week, considerably more than the 7500 population of Alsasua, who opened their doors to those who arrived early.

There were three-mile queues of traffic snaking around the roads of the mountainous region, where many had left their vehicles to walk.

“We are overwhelmed. It has multiplied the population by eight, the largest demonstration in the town and one of the largest in Navarra,” said the parents of one of the accused, their banner reading in Basque and Spanish: “It’s not justice.”

Perhaps not, but it is Spain.