4 national police officers on trial for torture 9 years after the 1-O

The first words today must be to congratulate Sebastià Alzamora.Yesterday, the Spanish Ministry of Culture announced that it was awarding him the 2026 National Poetry Prize for the book “Sala Augusta seguit de Llengua materna”, published by Proa. In a Hispanic culture where only that which is Castilian is authentically Spanish, the fact that the ministry has distinguished an author in Catalan is an oasis of recognition and coexistence that we celebrate. This, plus what Alzamora said, that “the prize was received by a book written in Catalan in Mallorca, where the Spanish right and far-right are working to destroy the Catalan language in all spheres”. Be that as it may, many congratulations, Sebastià.For the rest, we are in the same place. With a change that seems minor, but might not be. Judge Llarena blew hot and cold yesterday regarding the application of the amnesty.

He rejected it again, after the CJEU endorsed it. However, the tone of the court order was already different from previous ones, like someone who already knows they are reaching the end of the road. On one hand, he excludes the crime of embezzlement from the amnesty because he does that delusional thing of considering that Puigdemont and the rest of the exiles had a financial benefit during the October 1st referendum. But, on the other hand, he admits that if the TC says the amnesty can be applied without restrictions, his measures might be revocable.

Puigdemont's lawyer, Gonzalo Boye, said this morning on TV3 that, with the court order, Llarena is "de-escalating" the situation in order to lift the arrest warrant as soon as the Constitutional Court pronounces itself on the full validity of the law. Said by Boye, who is the first to know he has no reason to be optimistic, it seems like the preview of a long-awaited piece of news.

And speaking of the bias of the justice system, today the trial begins for the only case of police violence from the October 1st charges. The vast majority of national police officers who came to beat us are amnestied. But there are four who are not, and who today sit in the defendants' bench.

They are the ones who emptied Roger Español's eye, who will be tried for the charges of a day with a thousand injured. The Prosecutor's Office has requested their acquittal because it believes they were doing their job, and the State Attorney's Office is defending them. They face sentences of up to 13 years in prison and disqualification for the crimes of torture and injury resulting in the loss of an organ. The accused are the shotgunner who fired the rubber bullet, the inspector who directed the operational group, and two sub-inspectors who ordered and authorized the use of rubber bullets at 14 meters distance from the voters who confronted them.

That the trial is taking place 9 years later is a disgrace, as much as the fact that the shotgunner fired three times towards the place where Roger Español was. It is a very significant trial, the progress of which we will follow closely.

Good morning.