A judge in Madrid was set Friday to issue an EU arrest warrant for Catalonia’s deposed leader over his region’s tumultuous independence drive, in a move likely to take tensions to a new level in Spain’s worst political crisis in decades.
The warrant for Carles Puigdemont, who is holed up in Belgium, was expected a day after a Spanish judge threw a large chunk of Puigdemont’s axed regional government behind bars over their role in Catalonia’s push for secession.
Puigdemont, 54, dismissed last week as Catalan president by Spain’s government, failed to show at Thursday to be grilled by the judge over alleged sedition, rebellion and misuse of public funds, accusations he calls politically motivated.
Judge Carmen Lamela, who on Thursday had Puigdemont’s deputy Oriol Junqueras and seven other deposed regional ministers detained pending a potential trial, will issue the warrant “during the day Friday,” a judicial source in Madrid told AFP.
Puigdemont’s Belgian lawyer Paul Bekaert, who in the past has helped Basque separatists militants challenge Spanish extradition requests, told Flemish television channel VRT on Thursday his client would appeal the move.
A dark-suited Puigdemont said Thursday on Catalan TV from an undisclosed location that the situation “is no longer an internal Spanish affair” and called on the international community to wake up to the “danger”.
Scotland’s First Minister Nicola Sturgeon, who wants independence from Britain, said Friday that the crisis “should be resolved democratically — not by the jailing of political opponents.”
But otherwise Puigdemont’s appeal for foreign sympathy is likely to fall on deaf ears, with the international community overwhelmingly so far backing the central Spanish government.
– ‘Dictatorship not justice’ –
Late Thursday as television footage showed images of police vans with flashing blue lights taking Puigdemont’s former ministers to different prisons, Catalans took to the streets in anger and disbelief.
On Friday protesters briefly blocked several roads in Catalonia on Friday as well as a train line, authorities said. Fresh demonstrations were expected later.
Some 20,000 people, according to police, demonstrated in Barcelona, the regional capital, on Thursday. Others gathered across the region including 8,000 people in both Girona and Tarragona.
They held up mobile phones like candles, waved separatist flags — red and yellow stripes with a white star — and chanted “Free political prisoners” and “This isn’t justice but dictatorship”.
“There are political prisoners! This exacerbates things but this will also open the eyes of lots of people in Europe as well as in Catalonia,” retiree Josep Manel Boix, 63, told AFP.
Marta Rovira, a lawyer and Catalan separatist lawmaker, briefly broke down in tears as she spoke to reporters in Madrid after the announcement of the detentions.
“The Spanish state is a failed state, a state that has failed democratically,” she said. “I’m convinced we won’t surrender, we won’t, we will fight until the end.”
“We are one step from the abyss,” Catalan daily La Vanguardia said in editorial.
“The campaign (for the December election) now faces the serious risk of catching fire.”
– ‘Dodging responsibilities’ –
A total of 20 people including Puigdemont, Junqueras and the speaker of the Catalan regional parliament had been summoned for questioning on Thursday.
A hearing of the speaker and five others at the Supreme Court was adjourned until November 9 after their lawyers requested more time to prepare their defence.
Puigdemont and four others thought to be with him in Belgium — who will likely also be the subject of a warrant — failed to turn up. Bekaert said his client “did not find a climate conducive to testifying”.
In her ruling, judge Lamela said she had ordered preventive detention because of the danger that they might abscond like Puigdemont.
A ninth former minister, who resigned last week and who was the only one who didn’t refuse to answer Lamela’s questions, was also put in custody but was set to be freed after paying bail of 50,000 euros ($58,000) — an option not open to the others.
– Independence drive –
Catalan demands for independence date back centuries but have surged in recent years, in part due to a difficult economic situation compounded by corruption.
Puigdemont’s government organised an independence referendum on October 1 despite a court ban.
Spanish police tried and failed to stop it, in some cases firing rubber bullets at people defending polling stations.
A declaration of independence by the Catalan parliament followed last Friday.
But that same day, Rajoy dismissed the regional government, imposing direct rule on Catalonia and called regional elections for December 21.
Catalans, fiercely proud of their language and culture, are in fact deeply divided about independence, polls indicate.
Spain’s central bank warned Thursday of a possible recession in Catalonia if the crisis continues.
Close to 2,000 firms have moved their legal headquarters outside Catalonia.
There are signs of growing divisions among separatists, with many unhappy with Puigdemont being hundreds of miles away from the region he hopes to lead to independence.
AFP
