SPAIN DETAINS CATALAN EX-MINISTERS
8 held pending trial for alleged sedition, rebellion and misuse of public funds
MADRID
Puigdemont’s Belgian lawyer, Paul Bekaert, had earlier told Flemish television channel VRT that his client told him that the warrant “has been issued against the president and four other ministers who are in Belgium”.
He said he expected the Spanish judiciary to send an extradition request to Belgian federal prosecutors, adding that Puigdemont would file an appeal if a Belgian judge approved the request.
With television channels showing images of police vans with flashing blue lights said to be taking the former ministers to different prisons, Catalans took to the streets in anger and disbelief.
There were protests in front of the Catalan Parliament in Barcelona, the regional capital, with police estimating a crowd of 20,000. Others gathered outside town halls across the region, including 8,000 people in both Girona and Tarragona.
Those in Barcelona held up their mobile phones like candles and waved separatist flags — red and yellow stripes with a white star — as well as black and yellow “libertad” (“freedom”) signs.
The crowds, who included elderly couples and young parents carrying toddlers, chanted “free political prisoners” and “this isn’t justice but dictatorship”.
“It makes you angry even when you didn’t vote for independence because every time a disproportionate measure is taken, it only fuels independence,” said retired teacher Dolores, 66.
Puigdemont called, in a statement broadcast on Catalan TV from an undisclosed location, for the release of the ministers and said the situation “is no longer an internal Spanish affair”.
“The international community, and especially the European community, must realise the danger these attitudes represent,” he said.
A total of 20 people including Puigdemont, ousted vice-president Oriol Junqueras and the speaker of the Catalan Parliament had been summoned for questioning on Thursday.
A hearing for the speaker of Catalan’s Parliament and five others at the Supreme Court was adjourned until Nov 9 after their lawyers requested more time to prepare their defence.
Puigdemont and four others with him in Belgium failed to show.
On Puigdemont’s no-show at the hearing, Bekaert said his client “did not find a climate conducive to testifying and it would be better to put a bit of distance between it”.
In her ruling, judge Lamela said she had ordered preventive detention for those who remained because of a possible flight risk.
“Let’s remember that some of the defendants have already gone to other countries, dodging possible penal responsibilities,” she wrote.
A ninth former minister, who resigned last Friday, was also remanded in custody, but will be set free if he paid bail of €50,000 (RM247,000). AFP