"Voting or defending the republic from a parliament cannot be a crime". That was one of the key points Oriol Junqueras wanted to make in his final speech today at the end of the Catalan independence trial. The imprisoned former vice-president restated his wish for dialogue and his commitment to "goodness and respect for the human condition". "The best for Catalonia, for Spain and for everyone would be to return the question to politics, which it should never have left," he argued.
Although he had the right to speak for fifteen minutes, Junqueras used barely three of them. He defended his republican convictions and his "wish to serve and to be useful". He said that he has always avoided "the bad politics which refuses negotiations and agreements" and called for a return to dialogue.