SANT JOAN DE VILATORRADA, Spain — Depending on whom you ask, Oriol Junqueras is either a rebel Catalan leader who sought Spain’s implosion or an elected politician who has unjustifiably spent the past year in prison, awaiting trial for organizing an independence referendum in defiance of the Spanish government and courts.

Whichever answer prevails is not just central to the fate of Mr. Junqueras and 17 other indicted former leaders of Catalonia. It will most likely also influence the broader political conflict over the status of the region, which has its own culture and language, and a history at times defined by a struggle against the central power in Madrid.

“What is important is to know what you want,” Mr. Junqueras, who was the deputy leader of Catalonia, said during a recent visit in prison. “With whom you want to live and with whom you don’t — not exactly when the marriage will take place.”

Mr. Junqueras knows what he wants. But this month, Spain’s attorney general formally charged him and other secessionist leaders with rebellion and misuse of public funds, among other crimes, for their role in the referendum last year that had been declared unconstitutional, and in the declaration of independence that followed.