Spain: international arrest warrant against Puigdemont withdrawn

Spanish justice also withdrew the arrest warrants of five other pro-independence leaders.
  

Carles Puigdemont will be able to leave Germany freely. The Spanish justice has withdrawn on Thursday the international arrest warrants for the former Catalan president and five other independence leaders. They had been issued after the attempted secession of Catalonia in October.

In practice, these separatists are now free to move abroad without running the risk of being arrested and extradited. On the other hand, they would be imprisoned if they returned to Spain, where the arrest warrant is still in force.

"A new political and judicial victory"

This decision of the Spanish judge Pablo Llarena comes after the decision, a week ago, the German justice to allow the extradition of Carles Puigdemont to Spain only for the offense of embezzlement and not for rebellion, punishable by 25 years' imprisonment. In the judgment, released Thursday by the Supreme Court, the judge said he refused to allow the former Catalan president to be extradited for embezzlement and to withdraw the European and international arrest warrants against these six leaders. Catalans.

In a tweet, the former Catalan president felt that this decision was the "demonstration of the immense weakness" of Judge Llarena's case. His successor at the head of the regional executive, Quim Torra, for his part hailed a "new political and judicial victory".

ALSO READ >> Catalonia: a government without prisoners or exiles

Apart from Carles Puigdemont, currently in Germany where he was arrested at the end of March, this decision concerns four members of the ex-Catalan government – Toni Comin, Lluis Puig, Meritxell Serret, who went into exile in Belgium, and Clara Ponsati, who lives in Scotland – and Marta Rovira, the leader of the left-wing separatist party ERC, which would be in Switzerland.

What next for the procedure?

However, uncertainty remains about the continuation of the procedure, as Judge Llarena has already withdrawn a first international arrest warrant against these separatists in December before reactivating it at the end of March. "If we welcome this announcement, we must also remain cautious until the Spanish government guarantees that this is the end of the case", has also responded to Aamer Anwar, the lawyer Clara Ponsati.

ALSO READ >> Carles Puigdemont calls for removal of hams "Pig Demont"

Gonzalo Boye, one of Carles Puigdemont's lawyers, welcomed the withdrawal mandates. "We are very satisfied," he said, adding that Judge Llarena's case file "does not fit into democratic systems." "It does not make sense that facts are not a crime in the rest of Europe and are in Spain," he added, referring to the charge of rebellion.

Debate about the qualification of rebellion

The German justice had indeed considered that this accusation was not admissible in German law because Carles Puigdemont "was not the spiritual leader of violence" and because the so-called " violence (which took place in October) were not of sufficient magnitude "to justify such prosecution.

Judge Llarena challenged the German court's decision on Thursday, saying he should "limit himself to checking whether the facts described by the Spanish courts can be criminalized in Germany" rather than seeking the German equivalent of rebellion.