European Elections
Spain’s Supreme Court will decide whether Carles Puigdemont and two other Catalan separatists who fled abroad to escape arrest will be able to run in next month’s European Parliament elections.
A court on Saturday ruled to send to the Supreme Court an appeal filed by Puigdemont’s party against the decision by Spain’s Electoral Board to prohibit the three from running in the May 26 race to fill Spain’s allotted seats at the parliament in Strasbourg.
All three fled to avoid arrest for their part in Catalonia’s failed secession attempt in 2017. Puigdemont and Toni Comín reside in Belgium, while Clara Ponsatí is in the U.K. They are still wanted in Spain.
The State prosecutor says it believes the board’s decision could violate the rights of the three separatists.
Madrid Stabbings
A 21-YEAR-OLD man is among those reportedly left seriously wounded after a violent weekend in Madrid.
The young man was allegedly stabbed at around 4.45am yesterday morning after a brawl broke out at a fairground where a mobile disco was taking place.
According to local media, the victim suffered two deep stab wounds under his shoulder.
On Saturday, a 15-year-old boy and a 23-year-old man were also seriously injured in two further brawls in Madrid.
Later the same evening a 57-year-old man was said to have been stabbed in the Madrid municipality of Getafe.
Officers from the National Police arrested two Bulgarian men in connection with the alleged assault.
Fraud
The Spanish police have arrested a journalist and a computer programmer for their alleged involvement in an attempt to make €3 million from the sale of private material relating to Julian Assange while he was living at the Ecuadorean embassy in London.
Judicial sources said police on Wednesday arrested José Martín Santos, a reporter with a prior record of fraud. He and an unnamed computer programmer were held in Alicante.
They were allegedly part of a network that had tried to sell images, videos and personal documents depicting private moments from the last two years of the activist’s life inside the embassy.
The arrests were triggered by a complaint filed by Assange himself at a Madrid court.
Ship Building Deal
OUTRAGED UK union leaders are blaming Brexit delays amid reports a £1billion contract to build supply vessels for the Royal Navy could go to Spain.
The GMB trade union said industry sources suggested the contract could go to the Navantia naval yard in northern Spain.
The 35,000-tonne vessels will one day ferry ammunition and food to the Royal Navy’s two giant supercarriers, HMS Queen Elizabeth and HMS Prince of Wales, both of which will be based in Portsmouth.
But the only UK company competing is Babcock, which would send part of the work to the Rosyth yard in Scotland.
The Ministry of Defence announced in November that companies from Italy, Spain, Japan and South Korea were in the running for the contract.