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Another acquittal. The Barcelona Audience has acquitted the young pro-independence activist Adrià Catasús, for whom the prosecution was demanding eight years in prison for offences of public disorder and attack on an authority, for participating in the so-called "Holi" festive counterprotest against the demonstration by the Jusapol police association, in September 2018, on Barcelona's Via Laietana. In the verdict, given this Thursday, the court states that “it is not clear” that Catasús was one of the people who took part in the festive protest against the Spanish police union's march, and thus he was acquitted, as demanded by his lawyer Xavier Monge.

"None of the officers or the person who was injured identified Adrià Catasús. So we have to ask why Adrià has had the accusation in this case hanging over him for three and a half years, like a sword of Damocles”, said judge Joan Francesc Uría, spokesperson for the three-judge panel, in which judges Patrícia Martínez and José Ignacio Vicente also took part. In the resolution, it is stated that the officer affected had only complained of being hit on the wrist and the helmet, and that in the trial it was clarified that a female police officer who, looking at photographs, saw that she had also received a blow on the shoulder. The court added that in the analysis of the images, no one was seen hitting the officer. Catasús was identified in another demonstration and the images were compared, but no one identified him at the scene of this one, and the court considered that there were no "undisputed photographs" as required to convict him and therefore his acquittal was ordered.

Translation of tweet:
"Very harsh ruling against the @mossos police for having prosecuted Adrià based on a photo, chosen and isolated from the rest of the sequence, where no blow to any officer is clearly seen nor that it was him that caused it. CONGRATULATIONS Adrià!"— Alerta Solidària legal team

Manipulation

The Alerta Solidària legal aid team celebrated Adrià's acquittal and published the court's harsh criticism of the Mossos d'Esquadra police in a tweet. The lawyers had already denounced that the Mossos d'Esquadra had "manipulated the statements", as Catasús was accused of assaulting the same Mossos d'Esquadra agent as the Badalona activist Marcel Vivet, sentenced initially to five years' prison which was reduced to a year and a half on appeal. The appeal to the Catalan High Court, however, did not annul the procedure in that case, as it claimed that the Mosso, slightly injured, was the same in both cases; however, he received the two blows at different times, one on the wrist and the other on the shoulder, although it was stated in a confused way in the prosecution's initial indictment.

Withdrawal

Just yesterday, the prosecutor withdrew the request for four years in prison for an offence of public disorder against four women for participating in the Holi protest against the Jusapol police union, in September 2018. The trial, in the Barcelona Audience section 8, ​​was called off halfway through due to the lack of evidence against them. The prosecutor, after consulting with his superiors, announced the withdrawal of the accusation and the trial and imputation of the four young women was over. Carlos Hurtado, lawyer for the defendants, stated that "despite the withdrawal of the prosecution, they have been victims for four years and faced a demand for 4 years in prison" and blamed the Mossos for "inventing testimonies to justify the repression”.