Spain's Supreme Court has decided not to announce a same-day decision on the future of the acting Catalan vice president, Oriol Junqueras, according to information obtained by El Nacional. The court will continue working on Friday on its review of the preventive prison measures imposed on Junqueras, thus replicating the approach taken after the court hearing involving the two Catalan civic leaders Jordi Sànchez and Jordi Cuixart. The judges Miguel Colmenero, Alberto Jorge Barreiro and Francisco Monterde have to decide whether they will revoke the measures imposed by their colleague Pablo Llarena on 4th December last year, following Junqueras's court appearance on Thursday.
Junqueras will thus have to wait to learn the judge's decision, in spite of having delivered a testimony firmly in favour of the dialogue and bilateral approach shown in the election campaign and manifesto of his party, the Catalan Republican Left (ERC). The vice president, in prison since 2nd November, "has confirmed the personal commitment he has shown in his political trajectory and based on his moral convictions", as his lawyer Andreu Van den Eynde said following the court hearing.
"Man of peace"
Junqueras centred his words to the Supreme Court magistrates who have to review his preventive detention on being a "man of peace" with religious convictions who is searching for "bilateral dialogue" in the political conflict in Catalonia.
"I exhort you to set me free. I will attempt to ensure that civic and pacifist values prevail there where I have an influence", he said, declaring that he does not defend the use of violence and that, therefore, there are no reasons for maintaining the provisional prison measures that he has been subject to since 2nd November for the alleged offences of rebellion, sedition and misuse of public funds.