Eighteen days after Spain's Supreme Court published its sentences against nine Catalan political and civil leaders, public prosecutors Javier Zaragoza and Fidel Cadena have formally asked examining magistrate Pablo Llarena to issue European Arrest Warrants (EAWs) against exiled former Catalan ministers Clara Ponsatí, Toni Comín and Lluís Puig.
They ask for extradition to be pursued for the first two for charges of sedition and misuse of public funds, crimes for which their former colleagues have been sentenced to up to 13 years in prison. In the case of Puig, they call for a European Arrest Warrant for a charge of misuse of public funds. He is in Belgium like Comín; Ponsatí is in Scotland.
In their filings, the prosecutors argue that the Supreme Court's sentences give the EAWs greater "legal security" with respect to the two previous attempts, neither of which came to fruition. Similarly, it would allow the warrants "to be matched exactly" to the "facts and charges which have been established in the final sentence from the Supreme Court."
For the moment, they make no request for new extradition warrants against Meritxell Serret, Anna Gabriel or Marta Rovira.