Fugitive Catalan chief Carles Puigdemont has left Spain for Belgium after briefly addressing supporters in Barcelona, his social gathering stated Friday, leaving questions over how he evaded arrest once more.
Puigdemont, who fled overseas after main a failed 2017 independence bid for Catalonia, defied an arrest warrant to return to Spain on Thursday.
He delivered a speech to 1000’s gathered on the Catalan regional parliament in Barcelona earlier than vanishing.
The 61-year-old had been anticipated to attempt to enter the parliament constructing for a vote to choose a brand new chief for the rich northeastern area, however as a substitute disappeared into the gang.
“He is on his way back to Waterloo,” the secretary normal of Puigdemont’s hardline separatist JxCAT social gathering, Josep Turull, informed Catalan radio, referring to the Belgian metropolis the place he has spent a lot of the previous seven years.
Puigdemont’s lawyer, Gonzalo Boye, informed Catalan radio earlier that his shopper had fled overseas once more and would communicate on Friday or Saturday.
But Eduard Sallent, head of Catalonia’s regional police, the Mossos d’Esquadra, stated he didn’t “rule out” that Puigdemont was nonetheless in Barcelona.
“Until we have proof that he is outside the jurisdiction of the Mossos d’Esquadra, we will continue to look for him,” he informed a news convention.
Catalonia’s regional police launched a manhunt for Puigdemont and stated it had arrested two officers, together with one who owned the automobile utilized by Puigdemont to depart the scene. They had been launched after a couple of hours.
The drive denied there had been any collusion and insisted officers had deliberate to arrest him “at the most opportune time so as not to generate public disorder”.
– ‘Unfolded in a short time’ –
Supreme Court Judge Pablo Llarena, who issued the arrest warrant for Puigdemont, on Friday demanded the names of the officers who authorized the operation to arrest Puigdemont, in addition to “those who have been entrusted with its execution or operational deployment,” in accordance with a court docket doc.
Sallent stated his drive had the whole lot able to arrest Puigdemont close to the regional parliament however he didn’t go there as had been anticipated.
“The events unfolded very quickly,” he stated, including Puigdemont was “surrounded by a crowd of people and authorities” with the “aim of obstructing the action of the police”.
Puigdemont led the regional authorities in 2017, when it carried out an independence referendum regardless of a court docket ban.
A brief-lived declaration of independence sparked Spain’s worst political disaster because the nation returned to democracy following the loss of life of dictator Francisco Franco in 1975.
Puigdemont fled Spain shortly after the failed independence bid to keep away from prosecution and has since lived in Belgium and extra not too long ago France.
While Spain’s parliament handed an amnesty regulation in May for these concerned within the secession bid, the Supreme Court dominated on July 1 that the measure wouldn’t totally apply to Puigdemont.
– ‘Unspeakable’ –
Puigdemont’s newest escape has introduced political recriminations,
The head of Spain’s principal opposition Popular Party, Alberto Nunez Feijoo, stated the inside and defence ministers must be dismissed for the “police negligence” that allowed Puigdemont to evade arrest.
“What happened yesterday is unspeakable and cannot go unpunished,” he wrote on social community X.
But Justice Minister Felix Bolanos stated the operation to arrest Puigdemont “was the responsibility of the Mossos”, whose job it was to implement court docket orders in Catalonia.
“In Spain the law must be respected and court orders must be complied with,” the minister stated.
Catalonia’s parliament on Thursday elected Salvador Illa of Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez’s Socialists as Catalonia’s first head not from the pro-independence motion since 2010.
Source: www.anews.com.tr