After the conviction of nine independentist leaders, the Spanish justice ordered the capture of Carles Puigdemont

The Spanish Supreme Court (TS) decided Monday to dictate a new European arrest warrant and the delivery of the former president of Catalan independence, Carles Puigdemont, who escaped to Belgium and was declared in absentia in Spain.

Judge Pablo Llarena decided to accept the petition "for sedition crimes and misappropriation of public funds" after the TS Conviction of nine leaders of Catalan sovereignty for sedition, who will serve a 9 to 13 year prison sentence for the 2017 illegal independence process.

Now, once the Supreme Court has rendered its decision "proclaiming the criminal character of the prosecution" against those involved in the secession attempt, Llarena "considered that the new demand for capture was fully justified".

In addition, Llarena said he was acting before the "risk" that this sentence would cause Puigdemont and other separatists to flee Spain to "seek refuge in countries not part of the European Union". and which are not governed by the block mechanism "which facilitates the delivery of suspected criminals".

Confirmed legal sources EFE that the magistrate, who had instructed the cause of the process of illegal independence, had activated the mechanism to request again the surrender in Spain of the former Catalan governor, which a German regional court had already refused to extradite for the crime of rebellion, which was not contemplated by the court. Supreme

Llarena withdrew a previous European order when a German territorial court agreed to hand him over in July 2018 for him to be tried in Spain, but only for embezzlement of public funds and not for rebellion, as was the case. asked the judge.

Puigdemont, who lives in the Belgian city of Waterloo, and six other Catalan separatists remain abroad to escape the Spanish lawsuits and all weigh on a warrant for arrest in Spain.