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Madrid (dpa) – In pursuit of the Catalan separatist leader Carles Puigdemont the Spanish justice finally threw the sponge. Judge Pablo Llarena waives the extradition of the man arrested in the spring in Germany politician.
This was announced by the Supreme Court in Madrid on Thursday. The reason: The Higher Regional Court of Schleswig-Holstein recently declared admissible the extradition of Puigdemont in Spain suspected of embezzlement, but not because of the rebellion, the main culprit of the Spanish justice.
wins the victory of Puigdemont. The former 55-year-old regional president, who flees since the autumn of 2017, will be allowed to move freely and without inconvenience in Europe in the future. With the decision of Judge Llarena, the persecution is over at the European level, explained the German lawyers of Puigdemont. Spokeswoman of the state prosecutor of Schleswig, Wiebke Hofelner, said that upon the arrival of the official notification of the withdrawal in Germany, "the extradition procedure would have ended". Until now, however, the retirement of Madrid is not yet available.
German lawyers Puigdemonts pointed out: "As we have said since the beginning of the proceedings: the political conflicts of a state must be conducted politically, not through criminal law". If Puigdemont, who had fled the exile in Belgium in the autumn and was last, according to information from his surroundings in the Hamburg area, will remain in Germany, neither the German lawyers nor the Spanish jurists could say.
Jubilation in the separatist camp was great. The Spanish lawyer of Puigdemont, Jaume Alonso-Cuevillas, posted on Twitter: "It looks like we have a beautiful summer in front of us." Puigdemont himself took the opportunity to use social media to demand the release of his former employee in detention in Spain. The withdrawal of warrants was "evidence of the immense weakness of the judicial process," he writes.
The triumph of Puigdemont is not complete because he can not return to Spain. He would be immediately placed behind bars because the national arrest warrant had been upheld. This also applies to former ministers of Puigdemont, Antoni Comin, Lluis Puig, Meritxell Serret, Clara Ponsatí and Marta Rovira, who have also gone into exile abroad and are accused of rebellion at home. Even with them now only the European arrest warrants are withdrawn.
Puigdemont & Co. can not return home without being worried until 20 years later. This is the time it takes for the offense of rebellion, for which there is up to 30 years in prison, to be prescribed. The separatist regional government of his successor Quim Torra in Barcelona will probably only support Puigdemont from so far. Although Torra has begun talks with the new socialist central government as part of a process of détente, he continues to insist on the right to self-determination in Catalonia.
Meanwhile, Judge Llarena goes to court with the German Justiz . The Higher Regional Court of Schleswig-Holstein had "anticipated" the procedure in Spain "from a bad position". A letter from the Supreme Court indicates that the German judicial system undermined Llarena's ability to act as an investigating judge. The judge accuses the OLG, among other things, of "lack of commitment" before. However, Llarena wants to refrain from invoking the European Court of Justice (ECJ) in Luxembourg.
But not only the judge is upset. Many opponents of the separatists again severely criticized the German judicial system on Thursday. "It can not be that our country is being sold by a stupid (German) judicial system that has not understood what is happening here," said, for example, the deputy secretary general of the conservative party of Madrid (PP), Javier Maroto.
Already in recent weeks, very high pitched sounds have been heard. "The Nazis who have been persecuted can now flee to the Costa del Sol, so if Germany comes in and asks for extradition," said a Spanish TV analyst. The famous journalist Federico Jiménez Losantos had called for retaliation in his radio show: Germany is indeed "like a cat" and Spain "like a mouse", but the mouse could do "a lot of jokes "to the cat.
Puigdemont was a refugee in Brussels in the fall of 2017 as part of the referendum on the banned independence in Catalonia. Upon returning from a trip to Scandinavia, he was arrested on 25 March in Schleswig-Holstein, near the Danish border, in a motorway service area. The former journalist was briefly sent to a Neumünster prison, but he was later released under certain conditions.
Tweet of the Spanish lawyer from Puigdemont, Catalan
Report to El Pais
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