Barcelona: Catalonia leader Artur Mas went before a judge Thursday charged with breaking the law by staging a vote on independence from Spain, as hundreds of supporters demonstrated outside the court.

Mas’s supporters have branded the case against him politically motivated and accuse Spanish authorities of going after him to disrupt his drive for the rich northeastern region to secede.

The Catalan independence movement has raised political tensions in Spain as it recovers from several years of recession and prepares for a general election on 20 December.

The Spanish government says holding an independence vote is against the constitution since all Spanish people have the right to decide on matters of sovereignty.

The 59-year-old Mas waved from the steps of the courthouse to a crowd of hundreds of supporters as he arrived for a preliminary hearing in a judicial process that could see him barred from public office.

‘We are all Mas,’ yelled the crowd.

Prosecutors accuse him of civil disobedience and misuse of public funds in organising the vote on 9 November, 2014, in defiance of an injunction by Spain’s Constitutional Court.

Mas himself called the ballot ‘a great act of democratic rebellion’.

The Spanish government went to court to block his plan for a full referendum so Mas instead held the November vote as a non-binding symbolic ballot.

About 2.3 million of Catalonia’s 7.5 million inhabitants took part and nearly 1.9 million voted in favour of independence.

Sensitive date  

The hearing coincides with a sensitive date in Catalan history: Thursday is the 75th anniversary of the execution of Catalan nationalist leader Lluis Companys by firing squad under the Franco dictatorship.

Before his hearing, Mas attended a wreath-laying ceremony to commemorate the death of Companys, who in 1934 declared a short-lived Catalan state.

Separatists carrying flaming torches had gathered in the dark early Thursday at Barcelona’s Montjuic Castle, the site of Companys’s execution, to kick off those commemorations.

Mas’s supporters bitterly criticised the choice of date for the hearing.

His two co-defendants, regional education minister Irene Rigau and the former deputy leader of the regional government Joana Ortega, both denied the charges against them at hearings on Tuesday.

‘It is not good to criminalise a peaceful and democratic political act,’ Ortega said.

The rallies by separatists at the tribunal could further raise tensions after the courts service branded such demonstrations as an ‘attack on judicial independence’.

Catalans’ long-standing demands for greater autonomy have intensified over recent years as Madrid has resisted their bids for reform, and have surged in the recent economic crisis.

Deepening the conflict with Madrid, Mas teamed up with other separatists in a joint list in the September 27 Catalan regional election, making it a de facto vote on secession.

The alliance won enough seats to control the Catalan parliament if it teams up with the far-left separatist group CUP.

Mas’s alliance had vowed to declare independence for Catalonia by 2017 if it won, but it must first reach an agreement with the CUP.