Spain's ex-PM Rajoy testifies in Catalan separatists' trial

Spain's former prime minister Mariano Rajoy, in power when Catalonia's executive tried to secede, on Wednesday accused separatist leaders of wanting to "liquidate national sovereignty" by organising a banned referendum as he testified in their trial.

Rajoy governed Spain from 2011 until he was ousted in June last year by a no-confidence vote over a corruption trial that hit his conservative Popular Party (PP). He was replaced by socialist rival Pedro Sanchez.

The 63-year-old appeared at Madrid's Supreme Court as a witness in the trial of 12 separatist leaders and activists - nine of them on rebellion charges - for pushing the referendum in October 2017 and for a subsequent short-lived declaration of independence.

"They were fully aware that... as long as Mariano Rajoy was prime minister, there would be no (legal) referendum to liquidate national sovereignty," he defiantly told the court. Defence lawyers had yet to question him.

Before him, his former right-hand woman Soraya Saenz de Santamaria testified, accusing separatist leaders of persisting in organising the referendum on October 1, 2017 despite a court ban and "knowing that violence would take place".

Visibly angry, the former deputy prime minister said: "Everyone can have their own opinion and express it, but you can't violate the law and judicial decisions and generate violent incidents."
She admitted images of police violence during the referendum were "not pleasant to see." But she said that if voters had not been mobilised to form "human walls" to prevent ballot boxes from being seized - as alleged by prosecutors - "maybe some images wouldn't have happened."
"I confess I was wrong because that was the option."
He "will try to reject any responsibility" but "will have to respond to the question: why did he never sit down to talk" to the separatists?