A judge has sent Jordi Sànchez and Jordi Cuixart to prison without the option of bail, as the public prosecutor asked. They are to sleep tonight in the Soto del Real prison near Madrid.
The spokesperson of the prosecutors at the National Audience court, Miguel Ángel Carballo, asked for prison without bail for the president of the ANC (Catalan National Assembly), Jordi Sànchez, and the president of Òmnium Cultural, Jordi Cuixart, under investigation on charges of sedition relating to demonstrations in the run-up to the 1st October independence referendum. The organisations are two of the leading entities in the independence movement.
Sànchez only replied to questions from his lawyer while Cuixart used his right to remain silent.
In her earlier order for cautionary measures, but not prison, for the head of the Mossos d'Esquadra (Catalan police), Josep Lluís Trapero and superintendent Teresa Laplana, the judge, Carmen Lamela Díaz, hinted at what was to come before she finalised her tougher treatment of Sànchez and Cuixart. She sees them as promoters of the gatherings on 20th September and accuses the ANC of organising volunteers knowing that "they would make the police intervention more difficult".
The judge says that both men "set themselves up as interlocutors for the gathering" and that "they never used" this control "to disband [the gatherings] or dilute the risks".
The order specifies how they "climbed onto a car of the Civil Guard, they called for permanent mobilisation from that day on in favour of the referendum and against the judicially ordered actions to prevent it".