A new development in the legal contention between the Catalan pro-independence exiles and Spanish Supreme Court investigating judge Pablo Llarena. The defence team working for Carles Puigdemont, Toni Comín, Clara Ponsatí and Lluís Puig has invoked the fundamental right to be tried by an impartial judge and for this reason has demanded the recusal of Llarena. The final precipitant was an event that took place two weeks ago, when Pablo Llarena received the Premio Villacisneros, awarded by the foundation of the same name on November 16th.
The writ, addressed to the Supreme Court's criminal chamber, asserts that the acceptance of the award "manifestly deprives" Llarena of the essential impartiality in the case, and for that reason he should be recused from the investigation, as stated in the law governing the Spanish judiciary.
The Villacisneros Foundation
The appeal explains that the Villacisneros Foundation is a "Spanish nationalist organization" that defines itself as working "for the unity and strengthening of Spain"; it recalls that this organization joined the demonstration demanding the arrest of Puigdemont in October 2017; and includes public statements by leaders of the foundation in relation to Puigdemont such as those of the former president of the Community of Madrid, Esperanza Aguirre, former minister Jaime Mayor Oreja, Vox MEP Hermann Tertsch, and MEP Isabel Benjumea (PP).
"The Villacisneros Foundation, which fully defends a far-right ideology, has been demanding the imprisonment of Puigdemont since even before this criminal case began," it warns.
The text explains that the foundation itself has explained the relationship between the award and the case that Llarena is conducting against Puigdemont and includes different recordings made during the award ceremony, which went as far as mentioning the European Arrest Warrants for the exiled Catalan politicians as well as the last attempt to arrest Carles Puigdemont, two months ago in Sardinia. Acceptance of the award "has meant the definitive loss of his impartiality," the submission affirms.
Good guys and bad guys
Among the transcribed extracts of speech from the award ceremony which are part of the appeal is, for example, a statement by the previous winner, Dieter Brandau: “When the fugitive Puigdemont and his lawyer convicted of terrorism Gonzalo Boye laid a complaint against judge Pablo Llarena; when the Bureau of the Parliament of Catalonia lashed out at judge Pablo Llarena, when the puppies of the CUP on several occasions attacked the family home of judge Pablo Llarena; I would have liked the government of my country (...) to have made an effort, with all the official institutions, to explain to Spanish society that judge Pablo Llarena was one of the good guys; and that the others, those who laid complained about him, those who attacked the house where his family lives, those who attacked - from the Bureau, no less, of a regional parliament - were the bad guys, that they were doing wrong”.
The conclusion of the submission is that the acceptance of the award by Llarena leaves no doubt that "he has definitively compromised his appearance of impartiality" and makes "his definitive removal from the case unavoidable", as the Spanish judicial law requires.
In the main image, the Spanish judge Pablo Llarena during the Villacisneros Foundation awards ceremony / Europa Press.