The lawyer of 13 prosecuted for a student strike is confident that their innocence will be proven

Prosecutor claims eight years in prison in the trial that begins this Thursday

BARCELONA, 3 Jun. (EUROPA PRESS) –

Lawyer Eduardo Cáliz, a member of the defense team for the 13 protesters tried since Thursday for alleged disorders and damages in a student strike in 2017, has shown his “conviction that the innocence of the 13 will be proven” during the trial.

In statements to the media before starting the trial, which will continue on Friday, Cáliz has criticized the “disproportionality and lack of measure in the requests for penalties” from the Prosecutor’s Office, which claims eight and a half years in prison for each defendant.

Cáliz, a member of the Alert Solidària legal group, has considered that “the objective of this punitive route is not the author of the burning of a container or the breaking of some glass, but the student movement”.

The Prosecutor’s Office asks to sentence the 13 students to eight and a half years in prison and to fine them with 11,000 euros each for the incidents in the strike of March 2, 2017, which demanded a reduction in university fees.

The prosecution’s indictment details that, during the protest in the center of Barcelona, ​​several protesters burned a container, threw paint at a Movistar store and hit the glass of a bank with hammers.

CONCENTRATION AND SUPPORT OF VICERECTORS

A hundred people have gathered in front of the Palace of Justice to support the students, with shouts of ‘La publica a judici, absolció’ and ‘If they go to the prison, do not return to class’.

The vice-rectors of all the public universities of Catalonia and the general director of research of the Generalitat, Joan Gómez, have also attended.

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