Justice: The Spanish Justice Refuses To Extradite Puigdemont From Germany

Stand: 15h26 | Reading time: 3 minutes

] renounces after months of legal tugging the Spanish justice over the extradition of former Catalan regional president Carles Puigdemont of Germany. The Madrid Supreme Court also on Thursday withdrew the international arrest warrants against Puigdemont and five other Catalan politicians who had also gone abroad. In support of the decision, the Madrid court referred to the decision taken last week by the German court to declare the punitive extradition of Puigdemont solely for embezzlement rather than rebellion. This could have been done in his home country, only because of the lower charges in court, as the judge competent for the Schleswig-Holstein case (OLG).

After the decision Puigdemont and the other five defendants can now release relocate abroad. Puigdemont remained in Germany to await extradition by the prosecutor according to the court's decision. He was free but had to fulfill conditions and was not allowed to leave Germany at the moment.

"The decision is reasonable," said the German defenders team of Puigdemont on his behalf. "This is the logical consequence of our efforts over the past weeks and months, and Carles Puigdemont's persecution on a European scale has ended." Political conflicts can not be solved by criminal law, said his lawyers, referring to Catalonia.

Puigdemont, as the organizer of the plebiscite on Catalan independence from last October, is in the crosshairs of the Spanish justice system. He escaped to Belgium, but was arrested in March because of the international arrest warrant in transit in Schleswig-Holstein. Since then, the complicated judicial process has been for extradition

In Spain, there had been a change of government at the beginning of June. The new leader of the Social Democrat government, Pedro Sánchez, has a softer political line in the Catalan conflict than his conservative predecessor Mariano Rajoy. Just two weeks ago, Sánchez met with Catalan regional president Quim Torra to discuss ways out of the crisis.

Puigdemont had hailed the decision of the German judges last Thursday and had shown resolve. "We fight to the end," he said at the time. In the meantime, he has founded a new political movement in which he wants to bring together all defenders of independence.

The Spanish central government had declared in a first reaction that it respected the decision of the German justice but wanted a process in Spain. However, the Spanish arrest warrants have put the Madrid Court into effect. Puigdemont and the rest of the politicians should be arrested on their return to their homeland

This is not the first time that the Supreme Court has quashed an international arrest warrant against Puigdemont. He had already done so in December of last year while he was in Belgium. At the time, he justified his decision by the fact that Belgium could reject some of the criminal charges it made. That's exactly what the German court did later.

The conflict over Catalonia's independence efforts intensified last year, when Puigdemont organized the referendum, which the Spanish justice system considered illegal. After the vote, the regional government unilaterally proclaimed the independence of Catalonia. As a result, the Madrid government suspended Puigdemont and his cabinet. Since then, the judiciary has accused them of rebellion and misappropriation of public funds.