Supreme court accused of trivializing violence

The Catalan platform International Trial Watch (ITW), which is sending observers to the trial taking place about the 2017 Catalan referendum, reported yesterday that the president of the supreme court is “limiting” the defences’ questioning of the witnesses, which is facilitating “the banalisation of police violence”.

This is one of the conclusions drawn by the four lawyers who attended the trial in Madrid last week, the week in which civil guard and national police officials acting in Catalonia on October 1 were called to the stands. The police coordinator for the crackdown on the referendum, Diego Pérez de los Cobos, was also called last week. ITW believes that attempts to question witnesses statements using evidence, including videos, are being thwarted, particularly in relation to the police charges on October 1, and that this “can affect the right to a defence”.