German court to rule on extradition of deposed Catalan leader
GERMAN prosecutors yesterday lodged a formal application for Carles Puigdemont, the deposed Catalan president, to be extradited to Spain.
Mr Puigdemont has been held in Germany since his arrest last week on an international warrant issued by the Spanish authorities.
A German court must now rule on whether he will have to return to Spain to face charges of rebellion over last year’s referendum and declaration of independence for the northeastern region of the country.
Prosecutors told the Schleswig-holstein higher regional court they believed Mr Puigdemont’s extradition was justified.
Under EU extradition procedures, the German judge will not consider the question of Mr Puigdemont’s guilt, which is for a Spanish court to decide.
Instead he will determine only whether the offences Mr Puigdemont is accused of would be a crime under German law. The case is expected to hinge on the main charge of rebellion. There is no direct equivalent in German law, but prosecutors told the court they believed it equated to the German crime of treason.
Mr Puigdemont had previously been held in Belgium but Spanish prosecutors withdrew the arrest warrant when they feared a Belgian court might rule that rebellion was not a crime in Belgian law.
A second charge of misusing public funds is likely to prove uncontroversial, but Spanish prosecutors have been reluctant to pursue his extradition on that charge alone. Under EU extradition agreements, Mr Puigdemont can only be tried on the charges for which he is extradited. Mr Puigdemont, who has been held in Neumünster prison, 40 miles north of Hamburg, since his arrest, released a statement at the weekend calling on his supporters to continue the struggle for Catalan independence and not to resort to violence.
“We will continue to work to build a free country, to ensure we have a society with less injustice, more equality, more solidarity and more fraternity with all the peoples of the world, starting with the peoples of Spain, with whom we want to remain connected through respect and mutual recognition,” he said in an audio recording handed to a German MP who visited him in prison.
He called on supporters to campaign “without violence, without insults and in an inclusive way, respecting people.”
If the German court decides to approve his extradition, Mr Puigdemont has the right to appeal. Any extradition will also have to be approved by the German government, which can block it on political grounds.