Scottish justice abandons extradition process against Clara Ponsatí

The Scottish judiciary has closed the case of the European order against Catalan MEP Clara Ponsatí and has decided to return the file to Spain, which accuses her of sedition. The Scottish judiciary has decided to do so because, as she now lives in Belgium and not in Scotland, they are no longer competent to resolve the issue. Ponsatí announced last May the change of residence to run for MEP.

Ponsatí’s lawyer Aamer Anwar published the following statement on Twitter:

1/17 statement – ‘This morning our legal team appeared at court on @ClaraPonsati’s behalf & it was agreed that she should be discharged as a requested person & these extradition court proceedings are now finally at an end in Scotland’🎗 pic.twitter.com/uqjoD50sV6

— Aamer Anwar✊🏾🏳️‍🌈#BlackLivesMatter (@AamerAnwar) August 26, 2021

Now, if the Spanish Supreme Court wants to request again her extradition, it will have to ask for it in Belgium, as in the cases of  MEPs Carles Puigdemont and Toni Comín. But first it will have to wait for the Court of Justice of the European Union to answer the pre-trial questions in relation to the criteria for rejecting the euroorders. Spanish judge Pablo Llarena asked for it after the Belgian court rejected the extradition of former minister Lluís Puig because they considered that his fundamental rights had been violated.

On the one hand, the Belgian court acknowledged that the Spanish Supreme Court was not the right one to try him, and that it should have been the Superior Court of Justice of Catalonia, so they could not hand him over. But, on the other hand, they formally stated that there was a risk that the Spanish judiciary would violate Puig’s right to the presumption of innocence.