SHE came into court flanked by two women from the G4S security company, silver-haired, dark-jacketed and bespectacled and looking for all the world like your granny or your auntie that you just wanted to hug.
She looked nervously into the packed courtroom for friendly faces and there were plenty of them. She took her place in the dock, and smiled. She does that a lot.
READ MORE: Scotland sends Spain a message ... You can't have our Clara!
Then it was straight into the brisk and brief hearing that would decide whether Clara Ponsati would spend the next three weeks in a Scottish jail while she awaits the decision of a sheriff as to whether she will be extradited to Spain to face charges of violent rebellion against the same Spanish state that now wants to jail her for up to 33 years.
In the well of the court separated by plate glass from the rest of us, Sheriff Nigel Ross, advocate depute Michael Meehan and Claire Mitchell, advocate for Ponsati, conducted themselves at all time with politeness in the best traditions of Scots law. Bail was granted and Clara Ponsati was free to leave the court as long as she surrendered her passport, which she promptly did.
Almost incredibly, given the strain she must have been under, Professor Ponsati smiled again at the courtroom on her way to the form-filling and documentation she had to complete so she could walk into the free air of Chambers Street in our capital city.
READ MORE: Why Clara Ponsati may have no case to answer in Scotland
She will be back on April 12 and April 18 to learn her ultimate fate as to whether her faith in Scottish justice will be repaid and she will be allowed to carry on teaching economics at St Andrews University or else go back to Spain and be clapped in jail for “violent rebellion and misappropriation of public funds”.
She could be jailed for 25 years for the first alleged crime and eight for the second, and while sentences here are normally served concurrently, the Spanish courts might well decide to make them consecutive – in other words, she is facing the possibility of up to 33 years in jail
Looks may be deceptive, and there’s no doubt that Clara Ponsati is made of strong stuff, but she seems no more capable of violence and theft than she does of scoring for Barcelona against Real Madrid.
READ MORE: Where is the UK while Scots stand up to Spain?
A lot of Scottish people have cottoned on to the fact that this woman who has lived among us and taught our students for years is now facing punishment for something we Scots took for granted – the right to decide our own future in a referendum. That’s why when Ponsati turned up to the police station that sometimes features in Ian Rankin’s Rebus novels, there was a small crowd of supportive Scots and Catalans waiting to greet her. The crowd of around 150 flag and banner-waving people was even bigger in Chambers Street opposite Edinburgh Sheriff Court.
It was a colourful and good-humoured demo of support for Ponsati helped in no small part by the appropriate actions and words of the police officers on duty.
People had come from all over Scotland to support her. Among them were National columnist and former SNP MP George Kerevan who said: “Her fate is now in the hands of Scottish judges and there are real grounds for contesting this arrest warrant. None of the categories that are supposed to apply relate to political crimes.”
READ MORE: Puigdemont reaffirmed as Catalonia’s president in symbolic gesture
Having travelled from Blantyre, Colette Stevenson was happy to explain why she had come to Edinburgh: “We are here to support the Catalan people and the Catalan government in their endeavours to ensure that their case of democracy is heard across the world.
“I believe the case against Clara is completely ill-founded and the European Arrest Warrant, though I am not legally-minded, appears to be political. Scotland needs to stand up and be counted in this matter.”
Lyn Middleton from West Linton was adamant: “This is about democracy and saying ‘it matters’.
“If it can happen in Spain and politicians are locked up for their political views then we really need to be standing up to that because it could happen here.”
Mary Morrison from Edinburgh said: “I am here today to show solidarity with Clara and the Catalan people. I think the Spanish state brutality in Catalonia is obscene and the fact is they are using the warrant for political purposes and she won’t get a fair trial.”
Edinburgh University theology student Josep Marti, from Barcelona, said: “It is so sad that in Europe in 2018 we see this happening to our politicians who face jail because they were executing the will of peaceful people. I am very happy that Carla will get out of jail, but I am very very sad that our President Carles Puigdemont will probably have to go back to Spain and be thrown in jail for many years.”
When Ponsati came out of the court to face the media, the crowd cheered and chanted her name. She gave that warm smile again – let’s hope she will still be smiling next month. and forever.
The sheriff on April 18 will give Clara Ponsati a fair Scottish hearing and one of the questions he will have to decide is whether she will get a fair hearing in Spain. The evidence, m’lud, has been to the contrary.
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