MADRID, April 17 (Xinhua) -- The Spanish Supreme Court published its findings on the Catalan independence process on Tuesday, determining that violence was used.
The conclusions of the Supreme Court contrast with the recent finding of a German court which refused to extradite former Catalan leader Carles Puigdemont to face a charge of rebellion related to the independence process, deciding that the violence needed to sustain a charge of rebellion (which carries a possible prison sentence of 30 years) had not occurred.
The court in the German region of Schleswig-Holstein compared the incident, which happened during the independence referendum on Oct. 1, with protests against the expansion of Frankfurt airport in Germany.
By contrast, the Spanish Supreme Court finds the referendum was "an independence process in a European Union (EU) country that put the masses into the street so they could vote in an unconstitutional referendum, opposing the legitimate force of the State, which was protecting some supposed electoral colleges," Court sources told the Spanish media.
"At least initially, (Spain's) national sovereignty and the unity of the Spanish nation was attacked," the Court concludes. It blames separatist leaders for galvanizing people to vote in the referendum and provoking "predictable and avoidable" situations of violence.
Catalan health authorities informed that 1,066 people needed medical attention due to the action of Spanish security forces on Oct. 1, while the Spanish interior ministry said 431 police and Civil Guards were hurt.
"If the events which happened in Spain had happened in a region of Germany, with the same factors...it doesn't seem very likely that everything would have been resolved with a merely symbolic condemnation such as that," the Spanish Supreme Court reasoned.
