Puigdemont: flight to Brussels, prison in Germany, arrest in Alghero

It is not the first time that Carles Puigdemont, 59-year-old former president of the Catalan Generalitat arrested yesterday in Alghero on a European arrest warrant issued by Madrid that the sedition charge for the declaration of independence of October 2017, is arrested. On 25 March 2018, five months after taking refuge in Brussels, following his dismissal and the end of the four weeks of “Catalan independence”, he was arrested by the German police in the state of Schleswig-Holstein, not far from the border with Spain. Denmark crossed by car. Read also Puigdemont was in fact in Helsinki when the Spanish investigating judge, Pablo Llerana, had indicted him for rebellion and embezzlement, having used the Catalan funds for the referendum on 1 October considered illegal, and issued the European arrest warrant. After a few weeks in prison in Neumunster, the Catalan leader was released from prison in April on payment of a bail of 75 thousand euros pending the decision on extradition. The German court did not uphold the extradition request for rebellion, stating that there had been no violent uprising, but finally, in July 2018, it decided on extradition for embezzlement. At this point Spain had been forced to renounce extradition, to avoid having to try Puigdemont only for the minor offense and not for that of rebellion. Thus the European arrest order against him was withdrawn, along with that of five other Catalan leaders who fled to Belgium, Switzerland and Scotland.Puigdemont is once again free to return to Belgium and any other European country – in Spain instead he would shoot for he arrested her – and took up residence in Waterloo, just outside the Belgian capital. In April 2019 he presents himself in the European elections, leader of the Lliures for Europe, and, after the election, parliamentary immunity is triggered for him. Meanwhile, the work of the Spanish judiciary goes on, and on October 14 last year comes the heavy sentence of the Supreme Court that inflicts sentences between 9 and 13 years in prison for the other independence leaders, for sedition and embezzlement. However, the most serious accusation, that of rebellion, which would have led to 25-year sentences, is not recognized. The heaviest sentence to Puigdemont’s deputy in the days of independence, Oriol Junqueras, who has not fled abroad and is in prison along with other Catalan leaders. Immediately after the sentence, the Spanish judiciary issues a new international arrest warrant for the former president of the Generalitat and the process for the waiver of parliamentary immunity begins. On March 9, with 400 votes in favor, 248 against and 45 abstentions, the European Parliament votes to revoke the immunity of Puigdemont and two other Catalan deputies, Toni Comin and Clara Ponsati. The move should have paved the way for a new examination by the Belgian judiciary of the extradition request of Puigdemont and Comin – Ponsati is in Scotland – but on 2 June the EU Court of Justice intervened, temporarily suspending the waiver of immunity Member of the Catalan MEPs. Then finally, with a new intervention on 30 July last – the last act of the political judicial saga of Puigdemont before his arrest yesterday in Sardinia – he confirmed the revocation, stating however “that there is no reason to believe that the Belgian authorities or a another Member State can execute the European arrest warrants issued against Members and hand them over to the Spanish authorities “. In fact, it was recalled that the European arrest warrant had been frozen due to a conflict between the Spanish and the Belgian authorities who had refused to apply a warrant against Lluis Puig, another convict, claiming that his parents would be at risk in Spain. fundamental rights.