Catalan separatists, except Puigdemont, face grillings

MADRID AFP Nov2, 2017- Cheered by supporters, Catalonia’s separatist leaders arrived Thursday in Madrid to be grilled and potentially charged in another day of high drama in Spain’s crisis over the region’s independence drive.   

Notable by his absence, however, was dismissed Catalan President Carles Puigdemont and four of his former ministers, in Belgium and refusing to come and potentially be locked up.  Puigdemont and 19 others involved in Catalonia’s rollercoaster secession push over recent weeks have been summoned to be questioned by Spanish judges in separate hearings at the National Court and the Supreme Court in Madrid on Thursday and Friday.