Sacked Catalan leader surrenders in Brussels
FORMER Catalan president Carles Puigdemont handed himself over to Belgian police yesterday before a European arrest warrant invoked by a Spanish judge triggered his capture and detention.
The separatist leader, removed from office by the Spanish government, has declared that he will fight extradition to Spain, where he faces a possible criminal trial and imprisonment of up to 30 years.
The Brussels prosecutor’s office announced yesterday that Mr Puigdemont had turned himself in, along with four former ministers from his ousted Catalan administration, who travelled to Belgium last week with their leader to avoid a Spanish court summons.
The Catalan administration last month held a referendum deemed unlawful by Madrid and declared the region independent of Spain.
The Madrid High Court judge investigating all 14 members of the deposed Catalan administration remanded eight former ministers in custody without bail and issued European arrest warrants for the five fugitives in Brussels, who are accused of rebellion and sedition, among other offences.
“They went to the office of the federal judicial police and were deprived of their liberty this morning at 9.17am,” said Gilles Dejemeppe, a Brussels prosecutor’s office spokesman.
Mr Puigdemont has insisted that he does not fear justice, but has lashed out against what he calls Spain’s “politicised judiciary”.
“We are prepared to fully co-operate with Belgian justice following the European arrest warrant issued by Spain,” Mr Puigdemont posted on his Twitter feed on Saturday.
The case of the five Catalan former officials was due to be heard by a Belgian judge. The judge must decide within 24 hours whether to keep the fugitive politicians in detention, not to apply the arrest warrant, or to grant a provisional or conditional release.
“There is no fear of justice, only of injustice,” said Gonzalo Boye, the lawyer who is defending Meritxell Serret and Toni Comin, two of Mr Puigdemont’s former regional ministers.
The Catalan nationalists have strong support from Flemish political parties in Belgium. The fleeing of Mr Puigdemont and his colleagues to Brussels had been preceded by the country’s immigration minister, Theo Francken, saying they would be able to seek asylum.
Yesterday, the Belgian vice-premier and interior minister said that Madrid had overreacted and all efforts must be made to ensure that Mr Puigdemont and his colleagues get a fair trial if he is returned to Spain. Jan Jambon, who criticised the “silence” of the European Union on the issue, said: “I am just questioning how a European Union member state can go this far and I am asking myself whether Europe is to have an opinion on this.”
Guy Verhofstadt, a former Belgian prime minister and the leader of the liberals in the European Parliament, has suggested through social media that the Spanish judiciary releases the eight former Catalan officials jailed last week to prevent the legitimacy of the December 21 elections being undermined.
Describing the imprisonment of the politicians as “disproportionate”, Mr Verhofstadt wrote on Facebook yesterday: “It is time for de-escalation now. Urgent measures need to be taken to end the social and political conflict in Catalonia.” Mr Puigdemont (left) had called for a coalition of the separatist political parties to present a united front in elections to be held in December before turning up at the police station. An online petition calling for unity for the independence movement had, it was claimed, gathered 50,000 signatures within a few hours.
The uncompromising reaction of the government of Mariano Rajoy, which has included the jailing of the eight ministers, appeared to have strengthened the position of the separatists.
Two of the most recent opinion polls show that the independence-seeking parties would gain around 54pc of the votes. However, this may be just short of the majority needed, under Spanish law, to revive the secession campaign. The separatist parties have been divided over the best strat- egy for seeking independence and there has been criticism among many politicians and at the grass-roots level over Mr Puigdemont fleeing to Belgium.
Talks, however, have been under way in the last few days in an attempt to arrive at a consensus amid apprehension that a poor result for the independence movement at the December polls may be used by the Rajoy government to bring in rules that will make secession even more difficult in the future.
While political manoeuvrings go on behind the scenes, activists have called for street protests to continue. Another demonstration was held in Barcelona yesterday afternoon, although the numbers were down from the tens of thousands who had been marching in recent weeks.
Ariadna Olivas, one of the organisers, said: “People cannot keep on turning up every day. We shall see the figures go up as the election campaign gets under way. This is now going to be a long road starting with victory in the election and then starting the independence process. Meanwhile, the brutal behaviour of the Rajoy government will be noticed in Spain as well as internationally.”
The Catalan civic groups Assemblea Nacional Catalana and Omnium Cultural – two of whose leaders were imprisoned last month on sedition charges – have called for a general strike next Wednesday and mass protests next weekend.
‘The brutal behaviour of the Rajoy government will be noticed in Spain as well as internationally’