News
Hero rewarded
Catalan professor in
Edinburgh court
Acting president Pedro Sánchez is
expected to be called during the trial of
a Spanish economist living in Scotland.
Clara Ponsatí is expected to appear in
court in Edinburgh on January 23 to
face charges related to Cataluña’s illegal
referendum and subsequent
declaration of independence in
October 2017.
Ponsatí was the director of the School
of Economics and Finance at the
University of St Andrews before
assuming responsibility for the Catalan
education ministry in July 2017. Along
with former regional president Carles
Puigdemont and three other former
councillors, she fled to Belgium to
avoid arrest in Spain after the
referendum, and in early 2018
resumed her position as a University
professor in Scotland.
A Senegalese migrant living in Spain has
rescued a disabled man from a burning
building in Denia. The 20-year-old
climbed up the iron bars of the front
door onto the first-floor balcony of the
building and emerged with the man
slung over his shoulder. Gorgui Lamine
Sow has now received news from the
Valenican authorities that he and his
family will have their situation in Spain
regularised in recognition of his
heroism.
Narco sub
A submarine intercepted off Galicia at the
end of November has been found to have
been carrying 3,000 kilos of cocaine with
an estimated street value of €100 million.
The 20-metre semi-submersible was
tracked on a 7,690 kilometre journey
across the Atlantic from Colombia and
two Ecuador nationals were arrested as it
was towed into Aldán port by Guardia
Civil vessels. A Spanish national who
escaped was later detained.
Lucky survivor
A 34-year-old British woman who was
caught in a snowstorm in Girona in
November has recovered fully after her
heart stopped beating for six hours.
Doctors at a Barcelona hospital said when
her body temperature dropped rapidly, it
preserved her organs until she could be
revived. Audrey Schoeman, who teaches
in the city, displayed no vital signs when
rescued by helicopter.
She now faces charges of sedition from
the Supreme Court in Madrid which is
calling for her extradition from the UK,
and she had already attended two
preliminary hearings at Edinburgh
Sheriff Court when she was granted
bail and allowed to keep her passport.
The common-law offence of sedition is
no longer a crime in Scotland, but
Ponsati faces up to 15 years in prison if
she is extradited and then convicted in
Spain.
Spanish prosecutors in Spain argue
that 2017’s unilateral declaration of
independence was an attack on the
Spanish state and have accused some
of those involved of a serious act of
rebellion. They also claim that
separatist leaders misused public funds
while organising the referendum. Nine
other Catalan officials found guilty of
sedition earlier this year were given
jail sentences of between nine and 13
years.
Ponsati's lawyer, Gordon Jackson QC,
has said senior figures from Spain’s
judiciary and political world would be
called to give evidence, and these are
believed to include the present acting
President of Spain, Pedro Sánchez,
former president Mariano Rajoy and
the former foreign minister Jose
Manuel Garcia-Margallo.
Jail for “on-line rape
attack tour”
A 39-year-old Spanish man has been
handed an 18-month jail term after
providing on-line tours of areas of
Pamplona where a group of men
attacked and a raped a victim in July
2016. The convicted man, who is from
Madrid, was also ordered to pay
damages of €15,000 to the woman who
was subjected to an horrific attack by
the gang, known as the “Wolf Pack.”
In its ruling, the Navarra court noted
that the website had left victim,
“exposed, minimised, trivialised and
used,” in clear disregard for her
dignity. The court also heard that her
condition had worsened the post-
traumatic stress which she has suffered
since the attack, and that she has had to
take further medication to combat
anxiety.
The attack took place during the
annual San Fermín celebrations in
10
Pamplona three years ago. The case
came to court in Navarra during April
2018 when the prosecution claimed
that the five defendants dragged their
18-year-old victim into a hallway
where they took off her clothes and
engaged in unprotected sex with her,
before abandoning her in a distressed
state. Some of the men filmed the
attack on their phones and later
circulated their videos of the incident
in a WhatsApp group.
The initial sentence cleared the gang of
rape, but found them guilty of the
lesser offence of sexual abuse, a
decision which triggered massive
protests calling for the country's rape
laws to be changed. In July last year,
the Supreme Court overruled the
Navarra court and upgraded the attack
to sexual assault, the equivalent of rape
in Spanish law, and increased the
sentences of all five men.