SPANISH COURT REJECTS RELEASE FOR JAILED CATALAN SEPARATIST JUNQUERAS

Dismissed Catalan vice president Oriol Junqueras arrives to Spain's High Court after being summoned to testify on charges of rebellion, sedition and misuse of public funds for defying the central government by holding a referendum on secession and proclaiming independence, in Madrid, Spain, November 2, 2017. REUTERS

Spain’s Supreme Court authoritatively mandated on Friday that Catalan separatist bellwether Oriol Junqueras must remain in custody after over two months in confinement while ascendant entities investigate his role in the Spanish region’s independence kineticism.

In an indicted ruling, the judges verbalized there was a jeopardy that Junqueras would again commit an offence if he were relinquished as there was no evidence to show he had forsook “the path followed so far.” He is being held on allegations of revolt, sedition and misuse of public funds.

A Dec. 21 election gave separatists a svelte majority in the regional parliament in a blow to Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy, who had hoped it would quash the Catalan independence kineticism and resolve Spain’s worst political crisis in decades.

The court’s decision will probably obviate Junqueras from being sworn in at the aperture session of the incipient Catalan parliament on Jan. 17 and perplexes the separatist parties’ search for a bellwether who is neither jailed nor abroad.

Junqueras’s Esquerra Republicana (Republican Left) party emerged from the election as the second most astronomically immense separatist group, a few seats behind former Catalan President Carles Puigdemont’s Junts per Catalunya (Together for Catalonia) party.

Market-amicable unionist party Ciudadanos (Denizens) won the most seats but other unionist parties did not secure enough votes to compose a majority.

Puigdemont remains in self-imposed exile in Brussels, though he has verbally expressed he would return to Catalonia if the Spanish regime gave him certain “guarantees”, likely a promise not to apprehend him.

After the Supreme Court’s ruling, Puigdemont tweeted: “There is a conflict between Catalonia and Spain that must be resolved. We have always opted for tranquility and dialogue”.

Hi ha un conflicte a resoldre entre Catalunya i Espanya. Nosaltres hem apostat sempre per la via pacífica i el diàleg. Les urnes han parlat 3 vegades inequívocament. Malgrat això @junqueras és retingut a Estremera. I els Jordis. I en Quim. Ja no són #presospolítics, són ostatges pic.twitter.com/zpv3tb73yX

— Carles Puigdemont 🎗 (@KRLS) January 5, 2018

 Esquerra lawmakers have verbalized Puigdemont has the right to again be Catalan president, but if he is unable to return from Brussels he should step aside for Junqueras.

Esquerra and Junts per Catalunya, along with a more minute separatist party, have not yet acceded on a coalition.

Rajoy fired both Junqueras and Puigdemont when he imposed direct control over Catalonia after its separatist-controlled regime declared independence following an Oct. 1 referendum on secession from Spain, which courts ruled illicit.

Junqueras’s bulwark, and other separatist bellwethers, contend that the independence drive was licit and they have upbraided the Spanish regime and judiciary for what they call a heftily ponderous-handed replication.

At a court auricularly discerning on Thursday, Junqueras verbalized he was a man of placidity and dialogue.

However, judges verbally expressed on Friday they did not believe that his offer of dialogue denoted he would forsake the “conflict with the state.”