Spain’s attorney general has refused to rule out the possibility of arresting the Catalan president, as the region’s pro-sovereignty government prepares to defy Madrid by holding an independence referendum on Sunday.



José Manuel Maza said that Carles Puigdemont could face action for disobedience, breaching public duties and misuse of public funds for proceeding with the poll after Spain’s constitutional court suspended the hastily passed legislation underpinning the vote.

Maza said the regional president could be arrested for misuse of public funds as the crime carries a jail sentence. On Monday, he told Onda Cero radio that although such a move had not been judged “timely” as yet, adding: “It’s a decision that’s always available.”

Timeline Eight key moments in the Catalan independence campaign Show Spain’s constitutional court strikes down parts of a 2006 charter on Catalan autonomy that had originally increased the region’s fiscal and judicial powers and described it as a “nation”. The court rules that using the word “nation” has no legal value and also rejects the “preferential” use of Catalan over Spanish in municipal services. Almost two weeks later, hundreds of thousands protest on the streets of Barcelona, chanting “We are a nation! We decide!” At the height of Spain’s economic crisis, more than a million people protest in Barcelona on Catalonia’s national day, demanding independence in what will become a peaceful, annual show of strength. The pro-independence government of Artur Mas defies the Madrid government and Spain’s constitutional court by holding a symbolic vote on independence. Turnout is just 37%, but more than 80% of those who voted - 1.8 million people - vote in favour of Catalan sovereignty. Carles Puigdemont, who has replaced Mas as regional president, announces an independence referendum will be held on 1 October. Spain’s central government says it will block the referendum using all the legal and political means at its disposal. The Catalan parliament approves referendum legislation after a heated, 11-hour session that sees 52 opposition MPs walk out of the chamber in Barcelona in protest at the move. Spain’s constitutional court suspends the legislation the following day, but the Catalan government vows to press ahead with the vote. Police arrest 14 Catalan government officials suspected of organising the referendum and announce they have seized nearly 10 million ballots destined for the vote. Some 40,000 people protest against the police crackdown in Barcelona and Puigdemont accuses the Spanish government of effectively suspending regional autonomy and declaring a de facto state of emergency. Close to 900 people are injured as police attempt to stop the referendum from taking place. The Catalan government says 90% voted for independence on a turnout of 43%. Spanish government takes control of Catalonia and dissolves its parliament after secessionist Catalan MPs voted to establish an independent republic. Spanish prime minister, Mariano Rajoy, fires regional president, Carles Puigdemont, and orders regional elections to be held on 21 December.

Speaking days after Spanish police arrested 14 Catalan officials, seized almost 10m ballot papers and chartered ferries to accommodate the thousands of extra police officers who are being sent to Catalonia to stop the referendum, Maza rejected suggestions that the government was being heavy-handed.

“On the contrary, we’re making an effort every day not to go beyond what the law allows and, of course, not to be disproportionate,” he said.

Puigdemont, however, has accused the Spanish government of acting “beyond the limits of a respectable democracy” in its effort to stop the vote. He has promised to declare independence within 48 hours of a victory for the yes campaign.

The Spanish prime minister, Mariano Rajoy, has repeatedly said the unilateral referendum will not be allowed to take place because it is illegal and a clear breach of the constitution.

Performers form a human tower at a demonstration in in Barcelona on Sunday. Photograph: Emilio Morenatti/AP

Speaking to reporters in Barcelona on Sunday, the Spanish infrastructure minister, Iñigo de la Serna, said the vote would not happen and rubbished talk of a unilateral declaration of independence.

“As far as we’re concerned, what is proposed for 1 October lacks all the normal guarantees and therefore has nothing to do with a referendum,” said Iñigo de la Serna. “To be a referendum, it has to be legal, and if it’s not, it’s something else.”

He repeated the government’s assertion that it was willing to enter into dialogue if the Catalan government abandoned its attempt to hold a referendum, but said there were currently no meetings planned between the Spanish and Catalan administrations.

Profile Who is Carles Puigdemont? Show In a little over a decade, Carles Puigdemont has gone from obscurity to becoming the Spanish government’s bête noire and the pubic face of the Catalan independence movement.

A staunch and long-standing independence campaigner who has been the regional president of Catalonia since January 2016, Puigdemont was born to a family of bakers in the Catalan province of Girona in 1962. He studied Catalan philology at university before becoming a journalist on the Girona-based daily El Punt and helping to launch Catalonia Today, an English-language paper. He was elected in 2006 to the Catalan parliament as an MP for the Convergence and Union party representing the Girona region and five years later became the mayor of Girona. Puigdemont found himself thrust into the Catalan presidency in January 2016 after his predecessor, Artur Mas, stepped aside to facilitate the formation of a pro-independence coalition government.

De la Serna said that if the Catalan government declared independence and took control of ports and airports, they would be taking something that belonged to the Spanish state and the Spanish people as a whole.



“Frankly, a unilateral declaration of independence would be a joke,” he said. “Pretending to create a new state overnight without any due democratic process and ignoring national and international treaties is not going to be taken seriously by anyone.”



Another senior government official echoed the sentiment, telling Reuters: “Not even Venezuela or North Korea will recognise it. And if they do, I am not sure it would help the independence campaign a lot.”

Meanwhile, Spain’s foreign minister, Alfonso Dastis, said that the initials of the unilateral declaration of independence – DUI in Spanish -– reminded him of the English abbreviation DUI, or driving under the influence.

Addressing foreign media on Monday, Dastis would not be drawn on whether the thousands of extra police drafted in to Barcelona would be used to stop voting taking place at polling stations, saying it was hard to predict what would happen on Sunday.



But he conceded it was possible that the Spanish government needed to do more to get its pro-unity message across.

Polls suggest that while Catalonia’s 7.5 million residents are almost evenly split on the issue of independence, the overwhelming majority of them would like the matter put to a vote. A survey for El País this week found that 82% were in favour of a legal and mutually agreed referendum.