The prosecution defends amnesty for Puigdemont in the Supreme Court: "He did not embezzle for personal benefit"

MadridThe future of Carles Puigdemont is in the hands of the Supreme Court this Monday. The appeals court has held a public hearing to study whether or not to apply amnesty to the former president and the former ministers Toni Comín and Lluís Puig, half a year after Judge Pablo Llarena definitively denied it, considering that in his case the crime of embezzlement is not amnestiable. In the session, which lasted just over an hour, the Prosecutor's Office came out in defence of the pro-independence leaders during the Trial and regretted "the erratic" application of the law. "It cannot be seriously stated that they embezzled for personal benefit," argued the deputy prosecutor of the Supreme Court, María Ángeles Sánchez Conde.

"The interpretation made by the investigating magistrate contravenes the spirit and the letter of the amnesty law. I have no doubt that the legislator intended the application to all the facts and crimes related to the 1-O referendum, including those classified as embezzlement," the governor of Bo, Com., has defended in the public hearing, whose date was advanced by the ARA, Boye has argued that the High Court of Justice of Catalonia (TSJC) and not the Supreme Court is the one who is competent to rule on the amnesty.

The magistrates Vicente Magro –former senator of the PP–, Eduardo de Porres and Susana Polo make up the court that must make the decision, which will hardly be favorable to Puigdemont and the rest of the exiles. If they are denied the amnesty again, however, they will have exhausted the route in the Supreme Court and will already have a clear path to go to the Constitutional Court (TC). The court of guarantees, in fact, already has admitted the first appeals for protection from Oriol Junqueras, Raül Romeva and Dolors Bassa, convicted for the 1-O, after the slamming of the door on the amnesty of Judge Manuel Marchena.

In the case of the former president and leader of Junts, Llarena rejected last July to pardon him for embezzlement. In his order, the instructor stressed that the law for the judicial oblivion of the Process leaves out that crime in cases in which the subject acts with "the purpose of obtaining a personal benefit of a patrimonial nature", which he understands occurs with Puigdemont, Comín and Puig. The judge made the decision in July and She confirmed it two months later, when it overturned both the first appeal of the defendants and the one presented by the Public Prosecutor's Office and the State Attorney's Office.

Puigdemont's defense, led by Gonzalo Boye, considers that Llarena's is an "eccentric" interpretation of the law with the sole objective of excluding the former president from the possibility of amnesty. "The purpose of enrichment to which the legislator refers must be understood in the literal and restricted sense: a tangible, direct and material increase in personal assets, derived from the diversion of public funds to personal assets," he maintains in his appeal.