The independence movement has harshly charged, with terms such as "revenge" and "barbarism", against the sentence to four and a half years in prison of former Interior Minister Miquel Buch for the hiring of Mossos sergeant Lluís Escolà, also convicted, as an advisor for who served as Carles Puigdemont's escort in Belgium, and has seen the claim for amnesty justified, on which Pedro Sánchez's investiture partly depends. The former president of the Generalitat himself has called the sentence "barbaric" and sees in it one more reason not to renounce unilateralism and independence.
And the sentence comes at a very relevant political moment when the investiture of Pedro Sánchez depends precisely on the votes of Carles Puigdemont's party, who has been at the forefront of the conversations and has demanded an amnesty for all people affected by cases. criminal and civil penalties derived from the process.
Puigdemont has precisely expressed his dismay at the sentence, which he described as a "barbaric act" committed by Spain "with the judges and prosecutors in charge." The former president, who has not referred to the amnesty, has blurted out on the social network !” guides politics, justice and information, and the truth matters very little. For Puigdemont, "if you have not understood why we will never renounce unilateralism and independence, and why we distrust the Spanish State, here is one of the many that we have accumulated."
For Puigdemont, Buch and Escolà have been convicted of a crime that "they have not committed, only for the fact that they have been politically and personally loyal and committed" to him "as an act of revenge and retaliation" because, they have not been able to have it him.
Buch, who has expressed surprise at the speed of the sentence - just two and a half months after the trial took place and with a non-working month like August - and has announced that he will appeal it, has opened the door to being amnestied. In statements to RAC1, the former councilor has warned that "there is a list of those granted amnesty, but I think it is important to go into the background: many Catalans have suffered for thinking differently from the State." "More than personalizing it with names, we must defend that justice or the State have acted very harshly, sometimes even violating the law that they defend. Therefore, what we ask is that this must stop being the case. If not, we do not consider that we live in a democratically proper country.”
Along the same lines, the general secretary of Junts, Jordi Turull, has assured that the sentence "is revenge, it is not justice." "There is a judicial leadership and a State totally out of control against the independence movement. And enough is enough!" he stated in a message on lawfare' condemns when it points and then the machinery completes the job. "Prison sentences and disqualification that are barbaric. The State's fight continues. Ours, too," she stressed in another message on the network.
The expressions of indignation and support for Buch and Escolà have also come from the president of the Generalitat and several leaders of Esquerra. Thus, the president of the Generalitat, Pere Aragonès, has called the sentence an "aberration" and has demanded amnesty and self-determination. "All the support, Miquel Buch and Lluís Escolà. This sentence is a true aberration. Now and always, amnesty and self-determination are the way," he said in X.
Likewise, the president of ERC, Oriol Junqueras, has described the sentence as "an example of the repressive voracity of the Spanish justice system against the democratic exercise of the Catalan institutions." "An outrageous condemnation," the Republican leader insisted on the same social network after showing his full support for Buch and Escolà.
“That is why amnesty is so necessary. That is why it is so relevant to resolve the political conflict with self-determination. That is why this political-judicial persecution must end. That is why we want to be a new state, to guarantee justice,” reacted the deputy general secretary of ERC, Marta Vilalta.
The Minister of Foreign Affairs, Meritxell Serret, has also addressed Buch online, assuring that "before the repression that does not stop, we persist with more democracy: amnesty and self-determination".
