Spain Order Jailing Of Catalan Leaders: "What Happens Next" To Puigdemont?

The Spanish public prosecutor on Thursday ordered the country"s High Court that the Catalonian secessionist leaders be jailed. An arrest warrant be issued for ousted Catalan president Carles Puigdemont and eight members of his former government. 

Investigative magistrate Carmen Lamela issued the ruling on Thursday at the request of prosecutors who are pursuing a criminal case stemming from the declaration of secession the Parliament of Catalonia made Friday. The eight are Oriol Junqueras (Deputy First Minister, economy), Jordi Turull (spokesman), Raul Romeva (foreign affairs), Josep Rull (territory), Meritxell Borrás (public administration), Carles Mundó (justice), Dolors Bassa (work & social affairs), Joaquin Form (interior).

Earlier, the prosecutor"s office requested the jailing of Catalonian Vice-President Oriol Junqueras and seven other officials charged with rebellion, sedition and embezzlement of public funds, while the probe is ongoing, La Vanguardia reported.  The prosecutor also asked the judge to issue a European arrest warrant for former leader Carles Puigdemont while also requesting that counselor Santi Vila, who resigned from government before Catalonia declared independence, be released on bail of €50,000.

The request comes hours after ousted Catalonian President Carles Puigdemont failed to appear before Spanish judges. He’s currently in Brussels, seeking "freedom and safety." Puigdemont’s Belgian lawyer Paul Bekaert said that he would “cooperate with Spanish and Belgian justice.”

On Friday, October 27 the prosecutor filed a complaint against the Catalonian government for crimes it considers “very serious.” The alleged crimes relate to Catalonia’s independence referendum in which the majority of voters opted to secede from Spain.

Yesterday, a statement from the “Legitimate Catalan Government” confirmed that former Catalan leader, Carles Puigdemont, would not, as expected, appear in court in Madrid today.

The Spain Report points out that Catalan public television, TV3, published extracts from a statement from the "legitimate government of Catalonia" in Brussels on Wednesday evening that denounced the accusations presented against Carles Puigdemont and 13 other former regional ministers and the Speaker of the Catalan Parliament, Carme Forcadell, and five former members of her Speaker"s Committee. The statement said Mr. Puigdemont and a group of former regional ministers would be staying in Brussels to "denounce this political trial" abroad, implying they would not return to Madrid by 9 a.m. tomorrow morning, when they have been ordered to appear at the National High Court. The statement said the prosecutor"s accusations—for rebellion, sedition and misuse of public funds—were a "political trial" and the potential sentences—rebellion carries a maximum term of 30 years in jail—"disproportionate". The statement says Puigdemont and the others are not staying in Brussels "to evade justice but rather to demand it". It suggests the group will attempt to answer the judge"s questions from Brussels "using the mechanisms already foreseen in the European Union for these circumstances".

This morning, Spain’s El Pais newspaper asked what happens next now that Puigdemont failed to appear in court. According to El Pais, Puigdemont, as well as former members of the Catalan Cabinet Meritxell Borràs, Antoni Comín, Clara Ponsatí and Meritxell Serret, failed to appear.

So what happens next?

Ongoing cases

1) In the High Court, Judge Carmen Lamela has accepted the formal accusation of rebellion filed by the Spanish public prosecutor’s office against Puigdemont and 13 members of his former cabinet. The crime carries a possible sentence of 30 years in prison.

2) The former president is also being investigated by the Catalan High Court (TSJC) for disobedience, misusing public funds and making deliberately unlawful decisions as elected officials (known in Spanish as prevaricación).

A European Arrest Warrant?

1) Now that Puigdemont has failed to appear in the High Court, Judge Lamela could draw up a writ ordering him to be taken into custody.

2) Once this writ has been produced, Spanish judges can issue a European Arrest Warrant (EAW) – the European Union equivalent of the old extradition orders. Prosecutors must make a request for this arrest warrant to be issued.

3) This EAW would be handed over by the judge to the Spanish National Police, who will use the SIRENE office – part of the EU’s Schengen Information System – to transmit the warrant to Belgian police.

4) This mechanism entails the arrest of the individual named in the warrant. A Belgian judge would then be tasked with looking at the handover of that person to Spain. The EAW protocol has been in place in Spain since 2003 and was updated in 2014, partly to include the requirement that the initial request for the warrant comes from prosecutors (previously judges were able to draw up an EAW without involving prosecutors in the process). It was also updated to include the principle of proportionality, meaning that an EAW can only be issued when Spain believes the conditions for pre-trial custody exist in the case of the person named in the warrant.

EAWs are carried out between judges of different EU members states, and, as a point of difference with extradition orders, the governments of the relevant countries are not involved.

5) EAWs are regulated in Spanish legislation under Law 23 of 2014 covering the mutual recognition of penal resolutions in the EU. This rule imposes on Spain the obligation to comply with other EU legislation including a 2002 agreement on making the handover of detainees easier.

6. The procedure is fairly straightforward, on paper at least. The judicial system in the country notified usually agrees to the handover of the person named in the warrant in around 60 days.

Possible obstacles

There are, however, a number of legal avenues that can extend these time frames, according to judicial sources consulted by this paper.

1) This handover could take longer if the judge ordering the EAW has not exhausted all other possible means of questioning the suspect, including via video conference. However, in the case of crimes as serious of rebellion – as is the case with former Catalan premier Puigdemont – this excuse would carry little weight, according to judicial sources.

2) Another hurdle thwarting a rapid handover could be the fact that rebellion is not on the list of 32 crimes that are exempt, under European law, from “double classification.” In other words the crime of rebellion is on the books in both countries. Under Belgian law, rebellion has a slightly different definition from that of Spanish law, according to sources consulted. And even in Spain, the crime is not very well-defined. This could lead to Belgian judges to make an argument that they need to look closely at the subject in question and examine whether, under Belgian law, Puigdemont and fellow members of his government currently in Belgium are actually liable to prosecution. If a judge agrees to the handover of the detainees, those detainees could then appeal.

3) Although the simplified EAW system is based on “an elevated level of confidence” between EU member states, and on the fact that judicial resolutions in one country will be recognized by others, people named in these warrants can claim – and everything suggests Puigdemont will do this – that they are afraid their fundamental rights won’t be respected in Spain. Article 1.3 of the European legislation of 2002 opened the door to this possibility and has allowed Belgium to stop the handover of various ETA prisoners to Spain in the past.

With the Spanish Government continuing to escalate the confrontation with the former Catalonian leadership, we suspect that an arrest warrant is heading Carles Puigdemont’s way. Meanwhile, he chose to drink coffee in a Brussels café instead of appearing in a Madrid courtroom.

Here is the photo of Puigdemont having coffee in Brussels this morning when he was meant to be in court in Madrid. Caught by @adelgadoRne pic.twitter.com/Njr3niwpAh

— The Spain Report (@thespainreport) November 2, 2017

U.N. Child Abuse Scandal Is Latest In History Of Sex Crimes Committed By Officials, Peacekeepers

Via Disobedient Media

Last week"s report from the Associated Press revealing the bust of a child sex ring run by United Nations peacekeepers in Haiti was far from the first time the United Nations has been associated with child-abuse rings. The U.N. has for decades been rocked by accusations of sex crimes ranging from rape and abuse of women and minors committed in war zones to participation in human trafficking, prostitution and even production of child pornography involving senior U.N. officials and members of foreign governments. The horrific acts often go unpunished as the result of an overly bureaucratic investigation process, with many perpetrators being sent home where they in many cases do not face prosecution in their own state.

I. Abuses in Haiti

On April 12th, 2017, Associated Press (AP) reported the breakup of a child sex ring that was being run in Haiti by Sri Lankan U.N. Peacekeepers between 2004 and 2007. The report revealed that at least 134 peacekeepers abused nine children and that in the wake of the incident, 114 were sent home. None of the abusers were ever charged in connection with the event. AP found that found that some 150 allegations of abuse and exploitation had been reported in Haiti alone between 2004 and 2016, with perpetrators coming from Bangladesh, Brazil, Jordan, Nigeria, Pakistan, Uruguay and Sri Lanka. Public Radio International reported that victims of Pakistani peacekeepers included victims who were mentally disabled. Reuters mentioned that only two of the abusers from Pakistan faced sentencing at home, and were given a mere year in prison for the crime once it was finally investigated by the Pakistani military.

II. Abuses In The Central African Republic And West Africa

Stories similar to those emerging from Haiti have also plagued the U.N."s missions across Africa. On February 27th, 2016, the Washington Post reported that they had interviewed seven underage victims who claimed that they were sexually abused by peacekeepers from the U.N. MINUSCA mission in the Central African Republic (CAR). The Post also cited reports by Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International which documented additional cases of child rape and murder committed by U.N. troops stationed in the CAR.

The shocking incidents first surfaced after an official from the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), Anders Kompass, leaked documents and testimony to whistleblowing organization AIDS-Free World and French prosecutors. Kompass revealed that the abuse had been ongoing since before MINUSCA began in 2014, when French troops were sent to the CAR as part of Operation Sangaris. The abuses included cases of forced bestiality. The leak was just one of many instances which Kompass had heard about from coworkers and contemporaries in other parts of the U.N. Foreign Policy reported in April 2016 that more than 150 accusations of sexual misconduct had been filed by women and children with the U.N., though the true number of victims was likely much higher, with at least 108 cases reported in a single province alone.

Babacar Gaye, the Senegalese head of the U.N."s mission in the CAR, was fired in the wake of the scandal. Although Anders Kompass was ultimately exonerated for leaking documents and information about the abuses, he resigned from the U.N. in June 2016, citing a total lack of accountability among U.N. officials and his frustration at the impunity with which they had ignored the allegations of misconduct. AIDS-Free World also published additional documents which outlined reports that had surfaced in 2001, revealing additional cases of sexual exploitation by peacekeepers in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone.

III. Involvement With Human Trafficking In The Balkans

On February 2012, The Guardian interviewed Kathryn Bolkovac, a whistleblower who outlined abuses committed by U.N. peacekeepers from the U.N. mission to Bosnia. The allegations included revelations that U.N. peacekeepers had abused underage victims in brothels and were also helping to facilitate sex trafficking, torture and rape committed by organized crime groups in the Balkans. In some cases, U.N. personnel themselves were buying and selling girls around Bosnia.

Bolkovac joined the mission after signing up with Dyncorp, a private military contractor who had supplied the U.N. with manpower for the mission. In the aftermath of her revelations of these crimes, Bolkovac was fired by Dyncorp, who claimed she had filed erroneous time-sheets despite a ruling by a British employment tribunal in 2002 to the contrary.

III. UNICEF Child Pornography Scandal

On June 1987, the New York Times reported that the Belgian headquarters of UNICEF was discovered to have been used to produce and store child pornography. The secret photographic studio was located in the basement of the Brussels building where the committee"s offices were housed. Belgian police reported that the studio was being used to take pornographic photographs of children, many of whom were of North African origin. Belgian police said more than 1,000 such photographs were seized, along with a mailing list of some 400 names in 15 European countries that had been prepared on the UNICEF office computer. A 45 year old UNICEF employee was arrested after police said he was hosting evening computer classes for children in the organization"s offices and making them pose for pornographic photographs. Police also discovered cowboy outfits and costumes which they stated were being used to stage sex games with minors.

Report from the Daily Mirror on the scandal, 20th June 1987

Numerous individuals from multiple European countries were charged in connection with the discovery, including Jos Verbeek, the director of UNICEF in Belgium. The scandal led to 14 arrests in Belgium and others in Switzerland, France and Britain. The Guardian reported that former British Justice Ministry official Phillippe Carpentier was one of the individuals arrested in the United Kingdom, along with what it termed "a close associate, a top government official working on highly sensitive anti-terrorist legislation."

Report from the Daily Express, 26th January 1988

It was reported at the time that UNICEF"s Belgian committee was linked to a criminal organization producing pornographic photographs of children and distributing them throughout Europe, and that the cell was thought to have ties to similar organizations in the United States and Japan. Images previously found during law enforcement operations in several other European countries appeared to have been taken in the UNICEF office in Brussels, according to investigators. Belgian police also raided the Research and Information Centre on Childhood and Sexuality, which had been founded four years earlier and had additional branches in Switzerland and France.

IV. Reasons For U.N. Failure To Adequately Address Abuse

The United Nations has been rightfully blasted for its apparent unwillingness to take action and prevent repeated instances of the sexual abuse and exploitation of both women and minors. A 1996 U.N. study, The Impact of Armed Conflict on Children, noted that in half the cases examined, the arrival of peacekeeping troops to war torn areas was associated with a rapid rise in child prostitution on those states. In almost all cases, perpetrators are never prosecuted for their crimes. This is partially a result of the way in which the U.N. functions: peacekeeping forces enjoy immunity from prosecution in the state they are deployed to for policing, which can only be waived by the U.N. secretary-general to assist the flow of justice. Before that can even happen however, investigators must be sent to establish that a crime did in fact take place, making the U.N. the judge, jury and executioner in many of the reported cases of abuse. This effectively results in an almost complete lack of convictions, such as in the case of the Haitian ring reported on by AP this year.

AIDS-Free World maintains a set of guidelines updated yearly by the U.N. in a lame and futile attempt to prevent sexual abuse and exploitation by its personnel. But these guidelines do not address the systemic problems resulting from the legal status of peacekeepers and investigative methods which contribute to the situation. Similarly, it does nothing to address the top-down corruption in the United Nations that was highlighted by the 1987 UNICEF child pornography scandal, which gives troubling context to the apparent disinterest of officials in dealing with allegations reported by whistleblowers such as Anders Kompass. Until the United Nations takes a serious approach to combatting sexual abuse committed by its officials and peacekeepers, repeated instances of this behavior will more than likely continue unabated.