Ousted Catalan president flees to Belgium
Carles Puigdemont, the deposed president of Catalonia who defied the Spanish state by declaring his region’s independence, has fled to Brussels. Sources said Mr Puigdemont had travelled with five colleagues, fuelling speculation that he may seek political asylum.
CARLES PUIGDEMONT, the ousted president of Catalonia who defied the Spanish state by declaring his region’s independence, has fled to Brussels, fuelling speculation that he may seek political asylum in Belgium.
Sources from the Catalan government, which has been formally removed from power by Mariano Rajoy, the Spanish prime minister, told The Daily Telegraph that Mr Puigdemont had travelled to the Belgian capital yesterday, reportedly accompanied by five colleagues.
Yesterday all 14 members of Mr Puigdemont’s ousted executive were accused by Spain’s chief prosecutor of rebellion, sedition and misuse of public funds for organising an illegal referendum in Catalonia before declaring independence.
Six members of the speaker’s committee at the Catalan parliament face the same accusations for pushing ahead with illegal procedures before last Friday’s proclamation of an independent Catalan republic.
Catalonia’s public television channel, TV3, said that Mr Puigdemont and some of his former government colleagues were “in a safe and secluded place”.
On Sunday Theo Francken, Belgium’s migration minister, had appeared to invite Mr Puigdemont to request asylum in the country to avoid being arrested and facing up to 30 years in jail if found guilty of rebellion.
A spokesman for Mr Francken said yesterday that he could not confirm rumours regarding the deposed Catalan leader’s presence in Brussels. The Belgian state broadcaster VRT said Mr Puigdemont would “meet lawyers and political representatives”.
Mr Francken is a member of the New Flemish Alliance, the largest party in Belgium’s coalition government, which has offered consistent support for the cause of Catalan independence.
Fernando Martínez Maíllo, the chief spokesman of Spain’s ruling Popular Party, said that fleeing to Brussels was an “error and a sign of desperation”.
And there were signs in Catalonia that Mr Puigdemont’s enthusiasm to flee the country was not shared by all of his former government colleagues, some of whom showed up for work in their departments yesterday, despite the imposition of direct rule from Madrid under emergency constitutional powers. “There are some people who are still working for Catalonia in the functions that correspond to them – and others who will explain their decisions at some point,” a source from the office of Oriol Junqueras, Catalonia’s ousted vice-president, said in apparent reference to Mr Puigdemont’s journey.
The source said that the now deposed Catalan number two had gone to work in Catalonia’s economy department. Josep Rull, another ousted government member, posted a photograph of himself at his desk, on which a copy of yesterday’s edition of the Catalan newspaper El Punt Avui was visible.
The Catalan Mossos d’esquadra police force has been given direct orders from Madrid to file criminal reports against regional officials who did not accept their dismissals.
The mystery as to Mr Puigdemont’s whereabouts deepened when he failed to attend a meeting of his PDECAT proindependence party at which it decided to run in elections imposed on the region and set for Dec 21.