CATALONIA’s jailed independence leaders could serve their sentences – ranging from nine to 13 years – as “medium” category prisoners, it has emerged.

Spain’s penal system comprises three regimes for inmates, high, medium and low, and yesterday the justice department said it had recommended the nine prisoners be categorised as medium, or “segon grau” in Catalan.

This would allow them to leave prison for a few hours a day to work and to apply for up to 36 days “leave” each year after they have served a quarter of their sentence. The prisoners were taken into “preventative detention” in November 2017 and the longest sentence of 13 years was handed down to former vice-president Oriol Junqueras, who will be able to apply for a leave permit in March.

The two Jordis – Sanchez and Cuixart – have already served a quarter of their nine-year terms and can request leave immediately. Under Spain’s prison regulations, if they have work outside or undertake volunteering, they would only have to sleep in the jail. But there could be a stumbling block as among factors considered when applying for privileges is the acceptance of their guilt and an indication of remorse.

As yet, all nine continue to insist they are innocent.

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Meanwhile, Professor Clara Ponsati, the former Catalan education minister who is exiled in Scotland, will appear at Edinburgh Sheriff Court today to answer a European Arrest Warrant issued by Spain, charged with sedition.

The offence does not exist under Scots law, although Scottish prosecutors acting for Spain consider that her conduct would constitute the offence of treason under our own legislation.

Her lawyer, Aamer Anwar, said he will today name some of the Spanish politicians he intends to cite, accused of “twisting the rule of law to persecute those whose only crime was peacefully protesting and demanding independence”.