A disproportionate punishment. A Barcelona court has sentenced a youth named Oleksandr to seven and a half years in prison - after the prosecutor had requested 14 years - for having thrown a pyrotechnic device (not located, nor defined in the trial) and having caused hearing injuries to two Spanish National police officers. The action occurred during the sustained protests held in Barcelona after the announcement of long jail sentences for nine Catalan independence process leaders, specifically on October 18th, 2019, according to the sentence communicated this Thursday, to which ElNacional.cat has had access. In the same sentence, the sixth section of the Barcelona Audience court sentences Francesc Colomines to one year in prison, after the prosecutor had asked for seven years and four months, and it acquits another youth, Erik, who faced 3 years in prison, stating that it was not proven that he had carried out any action. The sentence can be appealed and Oleksandr's lawyer, Esther Anglès, is studying it to present an appeal to the Catalan High Court. Ultimately, the protester could benefit from the amnesty law, currently beginning its journey through the Spanish houses of parliament, given that all the actions took place in the context of the Catalan independence process.
The court convicted Oleksandr and Francesc for attacks against an agent of authority, but did not consider it proven that the three young people had made an accord to provoke disorder in that protest, in the vicinity of Barcelona's Plaça d'Urquinaona, and therefore it acquits them of the crime of public disorder. The Barcelona Audience added that it "was not a peaceful demonstration, and that the officers fulfilled their duty". The court - made up of judges Javier Lanzos, José María Gómez and María Isabel Cámara - maintains in it resolution, 55 pages long, that "the main evidence for the prosecution are the statements by the officers" of the Spanish police. At the trial, the three young men reported being ill-treated by the police.