Dozens of Spanish police have stormed a university and arrested a rapper who had barricaded himself inside the building after being sentenced to jail on charges of glorifying terrorism and insulting royalty in his lyrics.
Pablo Hasél and a group of his supporters had taken refuge on Monday in the university town of Lleida in north-eastern Catalonia. He had been given until last Friday to hand himself over to the police to serve a nine-month sentence.
He was convicted in 2018 over lyrics and tweets that included references to banned guerrilla groups, compared a court to Nazis, and called the former king Juan Carlos I a mafia boss.
More than 200 artists, including the film director Pedro Almodóvar, the actor Javier Bardem and the singer Joan Manuel Serrat, signed a petition against Hasel’s jailing, and the case led the government to announce some easing of restrictions on free speech.