After his brief appearance in Barcelona, the Catalan separatist Puigdemont, who is wanted on an arrest warrant, may already be back in Belgium. That is at least what a party colleague says.
According to the general secretary of his party Junts, the Catalan separatist leader Carles Puigdemont, who is wanted on an arrest warrant, has already left for Belgium after his lightning visit to Barcelona on Thursday. His plan is to continue working from Waterloo, general secretary Jordi Turull told the Catalan radio station RAC1. Puigdemont had been in Barcelona since Tuesday evening. The Catalan police wanted to comment on the failed arrest of Puigdemont at a press conference.
Puigdemont’s lawyer Gonzalo Boye had previously stressed that his client was back outside Spain. Puigdemont had lived in Belgium for most of the time since he fled abroad on October 30, 2017, following the failed secession of Catalonia from Spain that he had pushed for. Most recently, he had also spent time in the south of France.
While the Spanish police continued to search for Puigdemont, the Catalan singer-songwriter and head of the separatist civil movement ANC, Lluís Llach, wrote on the Platform X that Puigdemont had asked him to say that he was “healthy, safe and, above all, free”.
Lawyer with his own view on the fighting speech and disappearance
Boye had made a rather terse statement about the commotion the previous evening. He described his client’s return to Barcelona the day before from almost seven years of exile, his short speech in front of thousands of supporters and his subsequent disappearance under the watchful eyes of the press and the police as a normal day at work. “He did his political work and went home when he was done, like everyone else does,” he told journalists. In any case, Puigdemont will “never turn himself in.”
Although there is now an amnesty for separatists, there is still an arrest warrant against Puigdemont, whom the investigating judge Pablo Llarena accuses of having enriched himself personally in 2017. This crime is exempt from the amnesty. Llarena is now demanding an explanation from the police and the government in Barcelona as to how Puigdemont was able to escape.
Source: Stern
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