The former Catalan minister Meritxell Serret, who returned to Spain in March 2021 after several years on the run in Belgium, will finally be tried for disobedience in the Superior Court of Catalonia. The judges of the Supreme Court have opened an oral proceeding against her for a crime of disobedience and have referred her case to the Superior Court of Justice of Catalonia due to the recognition granted to her his seat in Parliament for the Republican Left.
The former minister Meritxell Serret returns to Spain after more than three years in Belgium and surrenders to the Supreme Court
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According to the Supreme Court, none of the accusations have requested that she be tried for embezzlement of public funds, so she will go to trial accused only of a crime of disobedience, which implies that she faces a sentence of disqualification if she is found guilty. by the magistrates. She admitted before Judge Pablo Llarena that she disobeyed the orders of the Constitutional Court to “carry out” the referendum.
Meritxell Serret was part of the Government led by Carles Puigdemont who in October 2017 left for Brussels and did not return to Spain when the National Court launched the investigation into the pro-independence process they had led. More than three years after her escape, she was the first and only one to return to Spain after changing her lawyer and beginning to be defended by Iñigo Iruin: in March 2021, she appeared by surprise in the Supreme Court and appeared before Judge Pablo Llarena .
A year later, she faces a trial for disobedience to be held in the Superior Court of Justice of Catalonia, due to her recognition as an ERC deputy in the Catalan Parliament. It is the same crime for which three accused by the procés were convicted by the Supreme Court ruling: Carles Mundó, Santi Vila and Meritxell Borràs, sentenced to one year and eight months of disqualification each.
The orders made public today by the criminal chamber of the Supreme Court close the door so that, except for surprise or last minute change, she is tried for embezzlement and therefore faces prison sentences: “This court cannot open oral trial for other crimes without express request” from any of the parties, something that has not happened: neither the Prosecutor’s Office, nor the State Attorney’s Office nor Vox have requested that she be tried for a crime other than disobedience.
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