MADRID—Spain filed criminal charges Friday against leaders of the wealthy region of Catalonia for holding a symbolic referendum on independence, following a debate among prosecutors that revealed the central government’s difficulty in exerting its authority there.
Attorney General Eduardo Torres-Dulce charged regional leader Artur Mas and two other local officials with four crimes each, including contempt of court and misappropriation of funds, saying they had defied a court order by allowing the Nov. 9 vote, in which 2.3 million people participated and
more than 80% favored independence .
The decision overruled federal prosecutors in Catalonia, who had said there were insufficient grounds to bring charges.
Mr. Mas, his vice president and education minister could face fines, prison terms and bans from holding public office if convicted.
The 30-page complaint accused them of “openly refusing to give due compliance” to an
injunction against the nonbinding vote issued by Spain’s constitutional court, at the central government’s behest, five days before it was to take place.
The Catalan government
allowed the vote to proceed , calling it a “citizen participation process” run by 40,000 volunteer poll watchers, not public officials.
The attorney general’s complaint said that the local government’s characterization of the vote was “rhetorical camouflage at the service of noncompliance.” It said the Catalan government had hosted an informational website, sent emails to school principals instructing them to open classrooms as polling places and ordered police to report for duty on voting day.
It took nearly two weeks and unusual debate between prosecutors in Madrid and Barcelona, the Catalan capital, for charges to be filed.
The day after the vote, the leader of the Catalan branch of the conservative Popular Party, which governs nationally, said
charges were imminent . But discussions dragged on for days, and Mr. Torres-Dulce’s office issued a news release Monday saying the Catalan prosecutors were opposed.
On Wednesday, Mr. Torres-Dulce took the rare step of convening the board of court prosecutors, a national oversight committee, which authorized him to file charges.
He said it was an exaggeration to speak of “rebellious or mutinous” prosecutors in Catalonia. But Carlos Floriano, a deputy secretary of the Popular Party, said Catalan prosecutors were “contaminated by the nationalist atmosphere” in the region and that the regional government had pressured them.
A spokesman for the Catalan government said the case showed “intolerable interference” by the central government in overruling the Catalonia-based prosecutors.
Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy has been under criticism from conservatives who demand a firmer hand in Catalonia. The day after the Catalan vote, Vox, a right-wing party led by former Popular Party members, filed suit accusing Mr. Rajoy of dereliction of duty in failing to stop it.
Gen. Jaime Domínguez Buj, the army chief of staff, caused a stir when he said this week that challenges such as the Catalan independence movement have appeared throughout Spanish history when “the central power is weak.”
Other opponents of Catalan independence, such as the editorial page of the Madrid newspaper El País, said the charges were likely to boomerang by prompting independence forces to rally around Mr. Mas, whose governing coalition has surged in the polls since the vote.
“What’s indisputable is that a crisis with very few precedents has occurred within the heart of the public prosecutor’s office and that institutions…have suffered a very negative impact in these days,” an El País editorial said.
http://online.wsj.com/articles/spain-files-criminal-charges-over-catalonia-independence-vote-1416586514
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