Catalan leaders get 13 years in jail for sedition
MADRID-Reuters
Spain's Supreme Court on Oct. 14 sentenced nine Catalan separatist leaders to between nine and 13 years in prison for sedition over their role in the region's failed bid for independence in 2017.
The three other defendants in the landmark ruling over a banned referendum and short-lived independence declaration were found guilty only of disobedience and not sentenced to prison. All defendants were acquitted of the most severe charge, rebellion.
The longest prison term went to former Catalan deputy leader Oriol Junqueras, who was given 13 years.
The former head of Catalonia's regional government Carles Puigdemont said that the prison sentences for the separatist leaders on trial for a failed 2017 independence bid were an "atrocity."
"It is time to react ... for the future of our sons and daughters. For democracy. For Europe. For Catalonia," he wrote on Twitter.
Puigdemont was the head of the Spanish region at the time of the independence bid but was not part of this trial because he fled to Belgium, where he now lives in self-imposed exile.
