Spain issues arrest warrant for ousted separatist leader
Puigdemont plans to fight extradition while in Belgium.
MADRID — A Spanish judge issued an international arrest warrant Friday for former members of the Catalan Cabinet who were last seen in Brussels, including the ousted separatist leader Carles Puigdemont, who said he was prepared to run for his old job even while battling extradition in Belgium.
The National Court judge filed the request with the Belgian prosecutor to detain Puigdemont and his four aides, and issued separate international search and arrest warrants to alert Interpol in case they flee Belgium.
Puigdemont’s Belgian lawyer has said that his client will fight extradition to Spain without seeking political asylum.
The five are being sought for five different crimes, including rebellion, sedition and embezzlement in a Spanish investigation into their roles in pushing for secession for Catalonia.
The officials flew to Brussels after Spanish authorities removed Puigdemont and his Cabinet from office Oct. 28 for declaring independence for Catalonia. The Spanish government has also called an early regional election for Dec. 21.
Puigdemont told Belgian state broadcaster that he was in Belgium “ready to be a candidate” in the early polls and because he had lost faith in the Spanish justice system.
“We can run a campaign anywhere because we’re in a globalized world,” he told RTBF, adding that he was not in Belgium to “Belgianize Catalan politics.”
“I did not flee, but it’s impossible to properly prepare” a legal defense while in Spain, he told the broadcaster.
If Belgium acts on a European warrant and arrests him, Puigdemont would have to be brought before an investigating judge within 24 hours. His extradition procedure would take 15 days, Belgian legal experts say. But should Puigdemont appeal, that process could take a further 45 days, meaning that he would probably not leave Belgium before early January, well after the elections.
In her decision Friday, Judge Carmen Lamela said that Puigdemont “apparently is in Belgium” and accused him of “leading the mobilization of the pro-independence sectors of the population to act in support of the illegal referendum and thus the secession process outside the legal channels to reform the constitution.”
Spain says the only legal way to achieve secession is by reforming Spain’s 1978 Constitution with an ample majority in the national parliament, not by regional votes.
The arrest warrants came a day after the same judge jailed nine former members of Puigdemont’s separatist government. All members of the ousted Cabinet were ordered to appear at Spain’s National Court on Thursday to answer questions in a rebellion investigation. Five of them, including Puigdemont, didn’t show up.