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Catalan police hunt for Carles Puigdemont as separatist leader returns to Spain

Fugitive former regional president addressed supporters in Barcelona before disappearing, sparking police operation

Carles Puigdemont evades arrest after speech in Barcelona – video report

Carles Puigdemont evades arrest after speech in Barcelona – video report

Catalan police have launched an operation to find and arrest Carles Puigdemont and set up roadblocks on routes to the French border after the fugitive former regional president returned to Spain for the first time in seven years to address a crowd of a few thousand in Barcelona before promptly disappearing.

The owner of the car in which he escaped – an officer in the Mossos d’Esquadra, the Catalan police – was arrested amid serious questions for the force, which was at the rally in strength, as traffic in Barcelona was brought to a standstill in the search for the former president.

The case could also have political ramifications as the leader of Puigdemont’s party, Jordi Turull, is expected to be summoned by police as a witness who, a spokesperson said, were looking into “any potential offences” committed in relation to the former president’s escape.Spain’s Socialist prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, depends on the support of Junts per Catalunya’s seven MPs in the Spanish parliament, leaving the separatist party with the power to torpedo key legislation.

Puigdemont, who has been living in self-imposed exile in Belgium after fleeing Spain to avoid arrest for masterminding an illegal independence referendum in Catalonia in 2017, had declared earlier this week he would be at the Catalan parliament in Barcelona on Thursday as it swore in the region’s new leader.

Speaking on a stage at the Arc de Triomf, symbolically close to the law courts and the Catalan parliament, he told the crowd of mainly older supporters: “I’ve come here today to remind you that we’re still here. We don’t have the right to give in, the right to self-determination belongs to the people. Catalonia must be allowed to decide its future.

“I don’t know when I’ll see you again but, whatever happens, when we see each other again we can once again shout out, ‘Long Live Free Catalonia!’”

Puigdemont was then whisked away, surrounded by members of his Together for Catalonia party, apparently in the direction of the parliament building. However, when the group arrived at parliament, he was not among them.

Details emerged of how Puigdemont managed to get to the stage, and then escape, despite the presence of about 300 uniformed and plainclothes police officers. A crowd of a couple of dozen people was used to shield him from view as he walked from the narrow Passatge de Sant Benet to the Arc de Triomf; once his speech was over, the crowd again shielded him as he reached a hidden screen and entered a waiting car.

Unconfirmed reports on Catalan radio said Puigdemont had made a pact with the police that if officers allowed him to speak at the Arc de Triomf, he would then surrender to them.

 

Carles Puigdemont delivers a speech on a stage in front of the Arc de Triomf, a tall and ornate brick monument, to a crowd of people waving flags
After his speech at the Arc de Triomf, Carles Puigdemont was whisked away in the direction of the Catalan parliament building. Photograph: Manaure Quintero/AFP/Getty Images

 

Meanwhile, an hour after the ex-president’s dramatic appearance and escape, the investiture of the new Catalan president, Salvador Illa, began. Illa, a socialist and former health minister in the Madrid government, won the most seats in May’s regional election but failed to gain an overall majority.

Pro-independence parties have previously been able to put together an alliance to keep the socialists from power but lacked the support this time, however. Their options were to accept a socialist-led government, led by Illa, or go to the polls again, an option that was in no one’s interest.

Puigdemont’s party, which came second in the election, refused to support Illa’s candidacy but he won the support of the rival separatist Republican Left party in exchange for offering Catalonia greater fiscal autonomy.

If part of the aim of the Puigdemont escapade was to overshadow Illa’s investiture, it succeeded. But the latter’s coming to power meant that for the first time in 20 years, Catalonia will have a regional government for which social issues, rather than sovereignty, are top of the agenda.

At the investiture, Illa praised his predecessor, Pere Aragonès, saying he had left Catalonia in better shape than he had found it. Adding that his preferred associates were Aragonès’ Republican Left party and the leftwing Catalunya en Comú, he said: “I have come here to construct, not to dismantle, and to make the most of my predecessor’s achievements.”

Puigdemont fled to Belgium in October 2017 in the boot of a car to evade arrest for his part in the failed and illegal declaration of Catalan independence. Nine members of his government received jail sentences of up to 13 years for their part in the independence push and all were pardoned three years later in 2021.

divisive amnesty law for those involved in the symbolic independence referendum in November 2014 and the illegal unilateral poll that followed three years later was passed by the Spanish parliament in May as Sánchez struck a deal with Catalan separatist MPs to help him return to power. However, Spain’s supreme court upheld arrest warrants for Puigdemont and others who were charged with misuse of public funds, ruling that the amnesty law did not apply to them. Puigdemont insists the vote was not illegal and that the charges linked to it therefore have no basis.

The Spanish government has not commented on Puigdemont’s reappearance and vanishing act, but the conservative People’s party leader, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, said Thursday’s events were “an unbearable humiliation”.

“It’s painful to watch this madness live – a madness for which Pedro Sánchez is chiefly responsible. Damaging Spain’s image like this is unforgivable,” he said.

 

The far-right Vox party’s Santiago Abascal described the events as “the destruction of the state beamed live on Spanish television”.

Author: Editors Desk

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