The MEP Clara Ponsatí (66 years old) has been arrested this Tuesday in Barcelona after her return to Catalonia to be transferred before a judge in relation to the national arrest warrant that weighs on her by the investigating judge of the cause of the process, Pablo Llarena, who attributes a crime of disobedience to him that does not carry prison sentences, for which reason he will probably be released after being notified of the charges.
The former Minister of Education has been arrested by an agent of the Mossos d'Esquadra dressed in civilian clothes when she was going, together with her lawyer Gonzalo Boye, to the office of the MEPs of Junts in the Born neighborhood, after holding a press conference in the Col.legi de Periodistes, in which Ponsatí has assured that he does not recognize the jurisdiction of Judge Llarena and has warned that his arrest warrant is illegal.
The former councilor reminded the agent, who approached her at the Plaza de la Catedral, that she is a member of the European Parliament and enjoys parliamentary immunity, and asked him if he was sure he wanted to carry out the arrest before some protests from the people who accompanied her. The MEP, who has always shown her card that accredits her as such, has finally agreed to enter a police vehicle to be taken before a judge on duty in the City of Justice in Barcelona. However, the former Minister of Education has never been handcuffed nor will she go to jail.
Previously, at the press conference held at the Col.legi de Periodistes de Catalunya, Ponsatí pointed out that he has not come to make "an agreement with the State, but to continue the fight and to stand up" and has been critical of the The return to Catalonia of Meritxell Serret, also a former minister, now head of Acció Exterior, which took place in 2021, and who will be tried tomorrow at the Superior Court of Justice of Catalonia also for disobedience. "I come to denounce the systematic violation of our rights, the passivity of the Catalan institutions and to stop the European institutions from looking the other way", Ponsatí has claimed.
After five years removed from Spanish justice, residing in Belgium and Scotland, Ponsatí has decided to return to Spain once the Supreme Court withdrew the accusation of sedition for which she was initially prosecuted -a crime that, unlike disobedience, does carry penalties of jail-, as a result of the reform of the Criminal Code promoted by the Government and agreed with Esquerra.
In this regard, the MEP has admitted that her return is related to the fact that the current persecution, for a crime of disobedience, does not entail a prison sentence after the reform of the Penal Code. "Everyone is clear that the intensity of personalized persecution, in my case, has decreased," she insisted.
