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Anglo-Spanish writer John Carlin was emphatic this Saturday in his comments on the acquittal of Sandro Rosell, allowed to walk free by the judge this week after spending 22 months in pre-trial custody. In an interview with Catalunya Ràdio he said that "the only explanation for what happened to Rosell is that he was the president of Barça football club."

Carlin, who is well acquainted with Rosell and even visited him in prison, said that the preventive prison "for political figures linked to the process" seems an "atrocity", but that the actions against Rosell are "at an even higher level of injustice" and said that the imposition of preventive custody was "grotesque" and "unjustifiable" - "even if he had been found guilty".

Carlin asserted that Judge Carmen Lamela, who ordered the imprisonment of the former FC Barcelona chief pending his trial on money-laundering charges, should be required to explain her actions. He likened the situation to the actions of a banana republic, and said he was convinced that no one would jail Real Madrid president Florentino Pérez for a similar charge, "not for a moment": "Even a three-year-old child in Spain or Catalonia knows this." He concluded that what is needed is a "thorough investigation."