💰 The gravity of the Catalan separatist trial from inside the Supreme Court
(24/03/2019) Broadcasting the trial live was the right decision, but the close ups on TV do not communicate the full seriousness of the affair.
(Original published: Mar 24, 2019, 1:11 pm)
When Marchena breaks mid-morning or mid-evening for a coffee, it turns out they do not all go down to the cafeteria because there is no cafeteria in the Supreme Court in Madrid. Perhaps the seven judges, who enter and leave through another door, have a separate service but the rest—lawyers, journalists and even the three defendants who are not in jail on remand (Santi Vila, Mertixell Borrás and Carles Mundó)—all traipse down to the vending machines in a corridor on the ground floor.
If you really want to, you can go out through all the National Police checkpoints to have one across the road, and then come back in before the session starts again. Outside, of course, there are dozens of officers guarding the Plaza Villa de París, because the National High Court—which deals with terrorism and organised crime—is just across the square. Inside, and as you approach the rooms reserved for Special Case 20907/2017—the trial of the Catalan separatists—there are more police officers, almost one on each door. There are even officers stationed at the door to the press room, which is next to the one where the trial is being held.
There are so many National Police officers because the prisoners' exit and entry to court must be managed. It turns out that the only place where you can see them live, in person, is inside the courtroom during the sessions. When they enter and leave that room, the officers lock journalists in the press room and place screens across the other corridors so that no one can see them enter or leave the sessions. It is not just that you may not take photographs or ask them questions outside, you cannot even see them.
The courtroom itself is magnificent, decorated in a Baroque style that impresses and imposes at the same time, its walls covered with red Damascus silk, marble columns, high ceilings, the dark wood of the long tables where the lawyers work, or the deep red of the benches and chairs.
Some of the accused have chosen to remain on those benches—Cuixart, Sánchez, Rull, Forn, Turull, etc.—and others not. Although they can be seen perfectly well on the television footage, inside the space of the courtroom, Junqueras and Romeva are almost hidden away under the big screen to the right of the judges; the prosecutors are there too, Ms. Seoane for the Attorney General's Office, the Vox lawyers as well as those of the defence teams: Van den Eynde, Pina, Melero, Arderiu, Roig and the rest.
And in the center of everything, in front of the accused sitting on the benches, is the judge presiding the Second Chamber for Criminal Matters of the Supreme Court of the Kingdom of Spain, next to, or almost under, the Spanish flag, which represents the nation and the Constitution that grant him the immense authority he has. Marchena.
There is a much greater calm and seriousness—even graveness—inside the room than that which is seen or perceived in the close-up shots on television, with the emphasis they place on the expressions on the faces of the protagonists, and even though the decision to broadcast the entire trial to the nation and the world was a good one.
"Please call Officer…", Marchena begins, and the Civil Guard officer, in civilian clothes, and whose identity cannot be revealed or broadcast but whose testimony is of fundamental interest for the case, for the exhaustive examination that is taking place of the events of 2017 in Catalonia, enters.
Officer 18 took part in the search at Unipost on Sept 19, 2017, which began at about 7 a.m. They found "43,000 envelopes, grouped by districts", some of them with proof-of-receipt sections (for registered post), on the loading dock at the company's location in Tarrasa.
Outside, "dozens" of people who had gathered around eight in the morning soon became "hundreds". "I had not seen anything like that in my life", says the officer: "It was a rat trap". The attitude of the people was not "at all peaceful", according to his testimony, similar indeed to the beginnings of the "Basque conflict", in the opinion of his colleagues who had lived through that period in the recent history of Spain.
As the Catalan Police moved the metal barriers that blocked the road away to allow the judicial committee to leave that day, the crowd threw them straight in front of the vehicles, several of which were trapped for a few moments in a ditch that was in that narrow street, where construction works were underway: " it was not a spontaneous thing".
The next officer to testify, also in plain clothes, took part in the search of some warehouses in the area of Can Barris in Barcelona, which they entered with a key, and found several pallets of material, 9 million "ballot papers to vote on October 1", with the letterhead of the Catalan government.
"I remember the hatred on the face of an older man", says Officer 19, "as if we were taking something away from him and his family".
Outside, they shouted "forces of occupation out" or even "we will kill you", a phrase the officer repeats to a question from Mr. Pina when the defence teams are allowed to cross-examine him.
The boxes had come from Madrid and were on their way to the Catalan government, but the officer does not remember exactly which departments. He does recall, again, "a face of great hatred" on that "75 year old" gentleman.
"You may leave now", Marchena tells him. Officer 19, like Officer 18, gets up, collects his ID card and walks out the door, without anyone in Spain outside the courtroom having seen his face.
Marchena breaks for lunch and the broadcast comes to an end. The police lock the press room door and put up the screens. Inside the courtroom, the first to leave are the prisoners. Turull, Rull, Junqueras and Romeva make the most of the walk to the door to greet those people who have come to see them at the trial from Catalonia affectionately for a few moments. They seem in good spirits, at least at the end of this session. Cuixart hugs a lady in a blue coat briefly.
Securely taken away by the National Police team, the restrictions are lifted and the rest of us leave the courtroom and walk out of the building, free to have lunch and to reflect on what it all means for the future of the 12 defendants—who face several decades in prison if convicted—for the history of what happened during those months in 2017 in Catalonia, and for Spain as a nation.
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