Quote (zarkadon @ 22 May 2018 19:57)
There are documents made by the separatist government that show they were expecting acts of violence against the police and national order. Thankfully, there wasn't as much violence as expected (still there were several instances), but it goes to show that Puigdemont went on with a plan which he expected would include widespread violent civil uprising. That is why he's charged with rebellion. Puigdemont obviously didn't lead a violent mob, but he could be considered responsible.
The issue is that the crime of rebellion isn't very specific. It doesn't say if the person involved must directly engage in violent acts or not, so it's open to interpretation. The judge here considers that direct involvement in violence isn't necessary, while in Germany they don't seem to think so for now.
It is true that SOME spanish lawyers and political parties warned the spanish state's prosecutor to not ask the judge to press those charges, as it the law is too unclear and has no real precedent to go by, so it could be risky to ask for extradition with that charge. They could have gone with sedition, which was indeed much more straight forward. They probably should have done that, but there are of course theories as to why they didn't... everyone here knows Rajoy hates turmoil and fuss, and the last thing he wants is separatists jailed (let's not forget he spent years letting them do all sorts of illegal stuff until the Constitutional Court ordered the government to put an end to this), so he could have asked the prosecutor to press the charge that had the highest chance of failing in court, hoping that the spanish judge would accept the charge and open a case for rebellion (which happened) and later end up clearing him from it (doesn't seem like it, as so far he has been very strict, and even refusing the prosecutor's petitions to let some of the accused like Turull, Forcadell and Rull free from provisional prison).
who claims they exist? are they confirmed by reliable sources or even publicly available? were they thought up and brought to paper by any of the arrested / charged ministers? did they actually expect or merely fear possible violence? violence as a REACTION to state sanctioned violence, or violence initiated by catalonian seperatists?
anyway, very interesting. the logical question here is: if it's as clear as you're trying to portray it, why didn't the prosecuter produce them to the court? or did he, and they just did not prove what you're claiming?