Anna Gabriel has announced she will not appear tomorrow before Spain's Supreme Court to testify as summonsed. Her strategy, similar to the one pursued by president Carles Puigdemont, looks to "hinder the process" which the Supreme Court has undertaken and which will end up, everything seems to indicate, in sentences of from 4 to 6 years for a crime of sedition. The trial will be held in the Supreme Court, where appeals aren't allowed, so the sentence, once given, will be firm and enacted immediately.
The case is currently in its first phase, the investigation or "instruction" phase. There are srtill further pretrial proceedings, formal charges and the trial to go. And the defence is thinking about saving Gabriel from going to prison, not just now for pretrial detention without bail, as was ordered against Oriol Junqueras, Joaquim Forn, Jordi Sànchez and Jordi Cuixart, but at all.
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Defence sources tell El Nacional that Gabriel's lawyers strategy is long-term, thinking more about the sentence than precautionary measures like pretrial detention. "There will certainly be a sentence" and "Anna's position is delicate because they have it in for her", the sources say.
As such, a defence strategy has been designed which guarantees Gabriel's right, and she has chosen to go to Switzerland because the country's legal system is better at protecting rights and can hinder the legal process put into action from Madrid.
This morning Gabriel's lawyers presented a note explaining that the former CUP deputy won't present herself for her testimony tomorrow. Nor will her lawyer, Benet Salellas, go to the court. The decision was announced by Gabriel herself in an interview with Swiss newspaper Le Temps (in French). She will give more details in a press conference this afternoon.
Could it harm Boya?
Her lawyers have evaluated how this decision my harm her colleague Mireia Boya. They believe it shouldn't. Boya has already testified and had no precautionary measures applied.
Between the postponement over problems with her lawyer's diary and the result of Boya's testimony, she's had a run of good luck giving her and her defence team free rein to act as they wish.
Now what?
Now is the wait for the Supreme Court's response.
Once they receive the letter from her lawyer announcing that Gabriel will not appear, judge Pablo Llarena will have to make a decision. He can summons her again, even though it's been made clear that she doesn't want to testify, or he can issue an arrest warrant.
The fate of any arrest warrant, however, is uncertain, especially taking into account the precedent of Carles Puigdemont. As such, the judge could decide to issue the international and European arrest warrants once the formal decree to open the trial is written, with the final charges, so that the court in Geneva is left without any confusion and doesn't refuse the extradition. This is the same plan expected to be used against Puigdemont.
The public prosecutors could ask for immediate action to bring Gabriel to court. The acusación popular, political party VOX who have brought private actions in the case, have already announced they will ask for "strong measures".