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Puigdemont arrested on way back to Belgium following lecture

14:00 26/03/2018

From Flanders Today: The deposed Catalan president Carles Puigdemont was arrested in Germany at the weekend. He was returning to Belgium by car from Finland, where he delivered a talk at a university.

Puigdemont has been living in Belgium since October, when he and several of his ministers fled Spain for Brussels. The move was in response to the Spanish attorney general’s decision to file rebellion and sedition charges against them.

The charges followed Catalonia’s independence referendum on 1 October. Spain then issued a European warrant for Puigdemont’s arrest. Puigdemont and four ministers eventually turned themselves in in Brussels, and a judge released them with the condition that they not leave Belgium.

In December, the international arrest warrant was withdrawn. But it was reissued again last Friday while Puigdemont was out of the country.

According to German authorities, a tip was received from Spanish security services, and Puigdemont was arrested as soon as he crossed the border from Denmark to Germany. His Belgian lawyers says he will face a court in Germany, which will decide if he is to be extradited to Spain.

Flemish minister-president Geert Bourgeois has always maintained that it was unacceptable for a European politician to have to flee their country. “If politicians are sitting in jail, living in exile abroad because they are guilty of some kind of medieval notion of ‘rebellion’, then we have a big problem,” he told an audience recently in Leuven. “Is this compatible with the European charter? Fundamental values must be respected. In my opinion, the Commission needs to act as a mediator here.”

Photo: Carles Puigdemont during a meeting of Catalans in Leuven last month on day 100 of his exile ©Thierry Roge/BELGA

Written by Flanders Today