His party had already announced it. Now Puigdemont also writes that he is back in Belgium after his quick visit to Barcelona. It remains unclear what the action was supposed to achieve.
Catalan separatist leader Carles Puigdemont, who is wanted on an arrest warrant, has reportedly returned to his exile in Belgium after his appearance in Barcelona. “Today I am in Waterloo after a few extremely difficult days,” the 61-year-old wrote on the X platform in the evening. He had covered “thousands of kilometers” in “a few days” and needed some time to rest. Puigdemont did not initially comment on the question of his political future.
At the same time, the politician, who is wanted on an arrest warrant in Spain, criticized the Catalan security authorities, who were conducting a “witch hunt” against people close to him in Catalonia. The general secretary of Puigdemont’s Junts party, Jordi Turull, had previously said that Puigdemont was back in Belgium. The Catalan police had previously stressed that they did not know where Puigdemont was and expressed doubts about Turull’s statement.
Puigdemont described the large-scale manhunt that was launched after his disappearance immediately after a short speech to supporters in the center of Barcelona on Thursday as completely disproportionate. It only burdened innocent citizens and wasted public money. He accused the Catalan police unit Mossos d’Esquadra, a kind of national police that was supposed to arrest him, of acting like the Spanish police.
The leadership of the Mossos d’Esquadra admitted at a press conference together with Catalonia’s Interior Minister Joan Ignasi Elena that they had failed to arrest Puigdemont in Barcelona. The minister stressed, however, that no one could have foreseen Puigdemont’s “inappropriate” behavior.
After his speech, Puigdemont did not go to parliament as announced, where the socialist Salvador Illa was to be elected as the new Prime Minister of Catalonia. Illa is the first regional government leader in Barcelona in a long time who is against the region’s secession from Spain.
Instead, Puigdemont got into a car and drove off to an unknown destination. Two police officers are said to have helped him and were arrested. The police launched a major manhunt with roadblocks. Thousands of drivers were stuck in traffic jams stretching for miles in the midsummer heat.
Puigdemont reiterated in the X-Post that he never intended to turn himself in or facilitate his arrest because he was being persecuted for political reasons and that the amnesty law should also apply to him. However, Spanish investigating judge Pablo Llarena accuses Puigdemont of embezzling public funds for his own benefit in 2017 in connection with the independence referendum. But this is excluded from the amnesty.
