Spain lifts arrest warrant for Catalan separatist Carles Puigdemont
The ruling removes a major legal hurdle after Spain’s Constitutional Court said the 2024 amnesty can cover embezzlement cases.
- On Tuesday, Spanish Supreme Court judge Pablo Llarena revoked the national arrest warrant for Carles Puigdemont, removing a major legal hurdle to the former president of Catalonia returning to Spain after the Constitutional Court endorsed the 2024 amnesty law.
- Previously, the Supreme Court refused to apply the amnesty law covering the "procés" to embezzlement charges, but the Constitutional Court overruled this after upholding an appeal from Bassa, forcing the warrant's cancellation.
- After Madrid invoked the Spanish Constitution in October 2017, Puigdemont fled to Belgium, though he briefly returned to Barcelona in August 2024 for the investiture of Salvador Illa before departing again.
- According to Infobae, Puigdemont will make an "institutional declaration" on Tuesday evening at Waterloo, Belgium, appearing alongside former regional ministers Antoni Com, Llu, and Puig at 6pm CET.
- The adoption of the 2024 amnesty law has opened the prospect of a definitive return for Puigdemont and other independence leaders to Spain, marking a significant shift in legal status for those who fled.
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162 Articles
He can now return almost nine years after fleeing to Belgium following the attempted secession of Catalonia, which he led.
By referendum, the Catalan head of government, Puigdemont, wanted to enforce the independence of the region in 2017, and failed. He then fled abroad and spent years in exile. Now, the Constitutional Court is paving the way for his possible return.
Nearly nine years after his flight to Belgium, the justice system lifted the arrest warrant on Tuesday, 6 October, which targeted the Catalan leader, continued after the proclamation of Catalonia's independence. A new one welcomed by the head of government, Pedro Sánchez.
Spanish Supreme Court judge Pablo Llarena has overturned an arrest warrant for former Catalan leader Carles Puigdemont, paving the way for his return to Spain ahead of early parliamentary elections in November, the French news agency AFP reports.
The Supreme Court overturned the request for arrest against the independence leader following the Constitutional ruling that upheld the amnesty for embezzlement; Sánchez welcomed the decision
Judge of the Spanish Supreme suspended the arrest warrants issued in 2017 against Puigdemont, Comín and Lluís Puig after the Constitutional decree that the amnesty law applies to the crime of corruption.
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