The unsurprising reappearance of terrorism in Catalonia

Last night the Guardia Civil arrested nine people in Catalonia on charges of terrorism, rebellion and  possession of explosives. This comes as no surprise to anybody who has been following Spanish affairs in recent times. We are approaching the anniversary of the illegal referendum on 1 October 2017 and the judgment in the trial of the people who organised it.

Nor does it come as a surprise to anybody who knows of the former Catalan terrorist organisation Terra Lliure. Here we see the present Catalan premier Quim Torra (right) with Carles Sastre, a man who was sentenced to 48 years for a terrorist murder of a businessman by strapping a bomb to his chest and leaving him alone in his home.

Terra Lliure disbanded in 1991 and many of its members joined the Catalan Republican Left, ERC, a party that is no stranger to our readers. Sastre himself is active in Catalan politics with the Committees for the Defence of the Republic (CDR), which organised strikes that closed railways and main roads in Catalonia earlier this year

Sources

(Spanish)

El Periódico

La fiscalía acusa a los CDR detenidos de ser un grupo terrorista

(The public prosecutor charges the arrested CDR with being a terrorist group)

El Independiente

Carles Sastre, el terrorista de Terra Lliure que lidera la huelga independentista en Cataluña

(Carles Sastre, the Terra Lliure terrorist who leads the separatist strike in Catalonia)