The Spanish congress has blocked a controversial amnesty law that aimed to benefit Catalan nationalists involved in separatist activities, in a shock move.
With an array of nationalist parties, including JxCat - led by former Catalan president Carles Puigdemont - in favour of an amnesty, the law appeared set to be approved by congress.
“We cannot participate in allowing the Catalan independence movement to be exposed to the whims of the politicised Spanish judiciary,” said Miriam Nogueras, spokeswoman for JxCat.
Last week, a national court judge, Manuel García-Castellón, issued a report suggesting Mr Puigdemont and some others could be accused of terrorist offences because of alleged involvement with Democratic Tsunami, a pro-independence activist group which staged mass protests in 2019, including one which brought Barcelona’s El Prat airport to a halt.
In a separate development another judge, Joaquín Aguirre, raised the possibility of Mr Puigdemont being investigated for high treason for alleged contacts with Russian officials ahead of the 2017 secession attempt.
The right-wing opposition has claimed the amnesty is unconstitutional and that Mr Sánchez is trying to push it through because he needs the parliamentary backing of ERC and JxCat.
The original article contains 528 words, the summary contains 191 words. Saved 64%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
This is the best summary I could come up with:
The Spanish congress has blocked a controversial amnesty law that aimed to benefit Catalan nationalists involved in separatist activities, in a shock move.
With an array of nationalist parties, including JxCat - led by former Catalan president Carles Puigdemont - in favour of an amnesty, the law appeared set to be approved by congress.
“We cannot participate in allowing the Catalan independence movement to be exposed to the whims of the politicised Spanish judiciary,” said Miriam Nogueras, spokeswoman for JxCat.
Last week, a national court judge, Manuel García-Castellón, issued a report suggesting Mr Puigdemont and some others could be accused of terrorist offences because of alleged involvement with Democratic Tsunami, a pro-independence activist group which staged mass protests in 2019, including one which brought Barcelona’s El Prat airport to a halt.
In a separate development another judge, Joaquín Aguirre, raised the possibility of Mr Puigdemont being investigated for high treason for alleged contacts with Russian officials ahead of the 2017 secession attempt.
The right-wing opposition has claimed the amnesty is unconstitutional and that Mr Sánchez is trying to push it through because he needs the parliamentary backing of ERC and JxCat.
The original article contains 528 words, the summary contains 191 words. Saved 64%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!