Catalan politicians Josep Rull, left, and Jordi Turull and arrive at the High Court in Madrid | Paco Campos/EPA Spanish court charges Catalan leaders with rebellion The region will struggle to find a new president, with most pro-independence leaders now formally charged.

Spain's Supreme Court said on Friday it will try 13 Catalan independence leaders on charges of rebellion, including ousted regional President Carles Puigdemont and his top aides and allies.

A judge later ordered that four of them should be jailed without bail.

Judge Pablo Llarena's decision to bring formal charges means the secessionist leaders face potential jail terms of 25-30 years. It also complicates the Catalan parliament's attempts to replace Puigdemont, who is in exile in Belgium to avoid being jailed over last year's attempt to declare independence from Spain.

In total, Supreme Court Judge Pablo Llarena indicted 25 former officials and pro-independence leaders on charges including misuse of public funds and disobedience. He also ordered the main group to pay back €2.1 million to cover the cost of last year's referendum, which Madrid declared illegal, and court costs.

The judge places five more independence figures in pre-trial detention.

In a statement, the court said the indictment concerns activities going back six years designed to "execute a predetermined plan with the aim of declaring Catalonia's independence, outside of the law."

The judge later said Jordi Turull, Josep Rull, Raül Romeva, Dolors Bassa, Carme Forcadell should be placed in pre-trial detention.

The 13 former officials indicted with the most serious charge — rebellion — include Puigdemont; his jailed former deputy Orio Junqueras; the former speaker of the Catalan parliament Carme Forcadell; and two men proposed by the independence movement to replace Puigdemont: Jordi Sànchez of the grassroots Catalan National Assembly (ANC), whose candidacy was blocked because he is in jail; and Turull, who failed to secure the post at a first attempt in the regional parliament on Thursday.

The woman deputizing for the jailed Junqueras as leader of the pro-independence Catalan Republican Left (ERC) party, Marta Rovira, was also among those indicted, but failed to appear in court on Friday, saying in a letter that she too had decided to take "the path of exile."

"Every day, every hour I have felt my freedom limited by arbitrary judicial threats. I did not feel free," she wrote in the letter. Leaving the country was "the only way I have to stand up against the government of the Partido Popular," she wrote, referring to the conservative party of Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy.

Puigdemont voiced his support for Rovira and the other Catalans charged, on a Twitter message which said they were being indicted by people "who don't understand democracy."

Puigdemont led the independence movement to victory in a regional referendum last September. A month later, he unilaterally declared independence, prompting Madrid to intervene in the autonomous region and call elections there in December — where the pro-independence parties once again won a bigger share of the vote than parties loyal to the Spanish crown.

Tot el meu suport i escalf als consellers i diputades que avui han de declarar davant dels qui no entenen la democràcia. Estimades @ForcadellCarme, @dolorsbassac i @martarovira, un immens agraïment pel vostre compromís i la tasca que heu fet aquests anys. Estem al vostre costat! — Carles Puigdemont (@KRLS) March 23, 2018

Rajoy, speaking to reporters at an EU summit in Brussels, declined to discuss the indictments but did criticize Rovira, though not by name: "I just want to say that we live in societies where we have to respect legal decisions and when a court summons us, we have to appear."

Diego Torres, Jakob Hanke, Saim Saeed and Ivo Oliveira contributed to this article.