The Supreme Court confirms the prosecution of Carles Puigdemont for aggravated embezzlement

The Appeals Chamber of the Supreme Court confirms that the fled process leaders must continue to be prosecuted for a crime of aggravated embezzlement and disobedience. The High Court has resolved the appeals filed by the rebels in the special case against the resolutions of magistrate Pablo Llarena in the special case of the procés, dismissing the appeals filed by the representations of former president Carles Puigdemont, and the former ministers Lluis Puig, Antoni Comín and Clara Ponsatí.

In addition, the court, made up of magistrates Vicente Magro (president and rapporteur), Susana Polo and Eduardo de Porres, dismissed Vox's appeal that sought to be prosecuted for public disorder, maintaining it for disobedience, as agreed by the instructor. In the same way, the Chamber has dismissed the resources of the rebels in the case as soon as it confirms the non-acceptance of the transformation of embezzlement into the attenuated subtypes included in the reform of the Penal Code introduced in Organic Law 14/2022.

The Supreme Court maintains that it is not possible to transform sedition into the crime of public disorder introduced since the elements of both types of criminal offenses are different. The appealed order locates it more accurately in the crime of disobedience of article 410 of the Penal Code. The defendants deployed and promoted civil disobedience and an institutional insurrection aimed at altering the constitutional order, without any call for violence, not public disorder through violence.

The Appeals Chamber of the High Court also reiterates that, as already indicated in the order of the trial court of February 13, 2023, the embezzlement reform does not alter the prosecution for this crime. And the mention of the profit motive that appears in the new wording does not alter it, just as it is not possible to include the facts in the new attenuated subtypes established in the last reform of the Penal Code.