SEVEN Catalan independence supporters arrested in Civil Guard raids on Monday are due to appear at a Madrid court charged with terrorism, possessing explosives and rebellion.
They were among a total of nine people arrested in a series of early morning raids by around 500 state officers.
Two of those charged with terrorism offences were released after giving statements at the Civil Guard headquarters in Barcelona.
But there was some confusion over all the prisoners’ status amid reports that Spanish anti-terror legislation had not been applied.
El Nacional reported: “The law states that for alleged crimes of terrorism a special prisoner regime must be applied, with detainees being maintained incommunicado, not being entitled to a lawyer until 48 hours have passed and with investigations being placed in the hands of Spain’s National Audience [court].
“Only one of these requirements has been applied, the referral to the National Audience.”
READ MORE: Pro-indy Catalans are arrested for 'plotting terror'
READ MORE: Pedro Sanchez sends Spain for its fourth election in four years
It added that the detainees’ right to legal representation had not been fulfilled: “Defence lawyers also report that the judicially-ordered secrecy of information related to the case is being violated, since details are being leaked to some media, even before the lawyers have had access to their clients.”
Catalan president Quim Torra has written to Spain’s acting prime minister Pedro Sánchez complaining about the operation, which he described as a “judicial-police-media operation that jumped all the principles of the presumption of innocence and that served to invent a false tale of violence in Catalonia”.
Meanwhile, it may have taken more than 15 months, but now the Supreme Court has authorised the Spanish government to exhume the remains of dictator Francisco Franco from his controversial mausoleum in Madrid and relocate the corpse.
The court dismissed an appeal from members of Franco’s family and accepted government plans to remove the body from the mausoleum in the Valley of the Fallen, outside Madrid – which has become a shrine for the far-right – and bury his corpse alongside that of his wife, Carmen Polo, in another cemetery in the Spanish capital.
Judges rejected a proposal from the dictator’s relatives to relocate his remains to the Almudena Cathedral. Many feared Franco supporters would create a new pilgrimage site in the centre of Madrid.
Sanchez said he was pleased with the judges’ ruling: “Today is a great victory of Spanish democracy. The Supreme Court has endorsed the exhumation of Franco’s remains and his transfer ... Justice, memory and dignity.”
His deputy, Carmen Calvo, said the exhumation would happen “as soon as possible”, likely before the Novemer 10 election.
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