New setback for the Spanish justice system: a court in Ghent has refused to automatically extradite the rapper Valtònyc as Spain's National Audience court had requested and postponed a more definitive decision until 3rd September. Josep Miquel Arenas, to give the Mallorcan rapper's real name, moved to Belgium in May after Spain's Supreme Court confirmed the National Audience's sentence of three years and six months in prison for his lyrics on charges of glorifying terrorism, libel and insulting the Crown. He already appeared in July before the Belgian court considering the case which left him free, just like this Tuesday, awaiting the legal decision in September.
It's no longer news that European justice doesn't agree with the Spanish system. It happened with the Catalan political prisoners, with European Arrest Warrants in different countries, which were withdrawn by judge Pablo Llarena once the German courts discarded the accusation of rebellion against president Carles Puigdemont and only accepted to study whether there had been misuse of public funds, a charge with a much lesser sentence but hard for the prosecution to maintain after having been discounted by the Spanish government. In fact, misuse of public funds is only upheld in the Civil Guard reports.
In the case of Valtònyc, although the sentence from the Spanish justice system says the opposite, it seems quite clear that it was an exercise in freedom of expression on the part of the rapper in his lyrics and cannot be framed within charges of terrorism and everything else he's been sentence for. The case of the Mallorcan rapper has a unique wrinkle with respect to that of the Catalan prisoners: Valtònyc has already been tried and sentenced with no possibility for appeal to any court whilst the pro-independence leaders in prison still find themselves awaiting their trial and those that chose to abandon Spain are free citizens for all intents and purposes.
The fact that Valtònyc has to appear on the 3rd and Supreme Court judge Pablo Llarena on the 4th over the civil lawsuit from the exiled Catalan ministers puts the sword of Damocles back hanging over the Spanish justice system. All of this in the middle of the irritation of the political right, the Madrid media and the high judiciary which find themselves trapped in the net that they themselves weaved by leaving politics to the judges. We'll all end up paying for their fears and errors.