Puigdemont's reception at the Arc de Triomphe: the first case not covered by amnesty

BarcelonaAn ANC partner He was summoned to testify as a suspect in the second week of April for a crime of disobedience against the Mossos d'Esquadra (Catalan police) for his participation in the reception of former president Carles Puigdemont on the day of Salvador Illa's inauguration. On that August 8, riot police arrested two people and identified nineteen more as they tried to enter Ciutadella Park to access the Parliament. Ignasi is one of the nineteen people the Mossos d'Esquadra identified after spraying him and the rest of the protesters with pepper spray to block their entrance.

While waiting to find out whether the rest of the defendants will be summoned, the Assembly activist goes to court without being protected by the amnesty law. "It is the first mobilization after the law, in a pro-independence or Proceso key, with defendants, because the other demonstrations with detainees have been for issues related to housing or anti-fascism, and his case, therefore, is the first to be left out of the temporal scope of the amnesty," confirms the lawyer from Alerta Solidària, X. And the fact is that the law only provides for actions that took place between November 1, 2011 and November 13, 2023.

The lawyer believes that Ignacio could be the only one of the protesters who will have to go to court: "My bet is that they have dismissed the case against the protesters." For this reason, Alerta Solidària will directly demand the filing of the case against Ignasi, who will not be allowed to enter prison if he is convicted, because disobedience is punishable by both prison terms ranging from 3 months to 1 year (less than 2 years that imply imprisonment) or fines of 6 to 18 months, which entail sanctions of 1,000 to 3,000 euros.

Ignasi has created a group on X called "The Shame of Pepper Spray" to try to contact other people who have been summoned to testify, but no one has contacted him. "I think I'm the only one," he says, resigned, in conversation with the ARA, after emphasizing that no police image or video shows that he committed any criminal act. The fact that he is not protected by the amnesty law does not worry him: "I will not incriminate myself, but I am proud of what I did and I do not regret anything because we were simply defending the right to access the Parliament." In this sense, he blames the police for the incidents. "It was a Kafkaesque situation because five minutes later they opened the park gates and what they did was useless," he criticizes, recalling that the bulk of the protesters were "elderly people" and that "there was no violence until the Mossos d'Esquadra charged."

Meanwhile, the presiding judge of Barcelona's 24th investigating court, which is investigating the case involving Puigdemont's appearance in Barcelona and his return to Waterloo, has requested the Mossos d'Esquadra to provide the plan designed for his arrest and has summoned five officers as witnesses on May 12. In this other case, the three Catalan police officers who helped the Junts leader reach the Arc de Triomf and leave after his speech ended are being investigated, accused of concealing the crime. Another case is also open against the leadership of the Mossos d'Esquadra, then led by Eduard Sallent, for "inaction" in the arrest of the former president following complaints filed by Vox and Hazte Oír, which the Prosecutor's Office has requested be closed.