An earlier version described José Luis Rodriguez Zapatero as a former president of Spain; he is a former prime minister.

One had even been vice- president of Spain's state oil giant Repsol, although he had left the company years before his arrest.

The president of Spain's Catalonia autonomous region has called for an immediate halt to violence, as protests continued for a third night.

We're out here now and we're not going back, said Luis Cayo, president of Spain's Committee of Representatives of People with Disabilities.