Where did Carles Puigdemont go? A few minutes after his triumphant return to the streets of Barcelona at the end of a seven-year Belgian exile, the pro-independence leader, after giving a speech to several thousand people, got into a white vehicle and disappeared, frustrating the imposing police system set up to organise his arrest.
“The system provided for an arrest to be made in a proportionate manner and at the most appropriate time so as not to cause disruptions to public order,” the Mossos d’Esquadra said in a statement.
On Friday, August 9, a judge officially asked the police and the government for explanations following Puigdemont’s disappearance. Judge Llarena, who issued the arrest warrant against Carles Puigdemont, is asking in particular for clarification of the Barcelona police system in order to understand its “failure” and the means used to locate and arrest Carles Puigdemont at the border before his appearance on Thursday.
Internal complicity
Since then, many doubts have arisen, particularly within the Mossos d’Esquadra, who were in charge of supervising the event and arresting the pro-independence leader. An internal investigation has been opened to assess whether Puigdemont may or may not have benefited from the complicity of the police.
According to several media outlets, including El Periódico, investigations have shown that the vehicle used to escape the pro-independence leader, who tried to secede from Spain in 2017, belongs to one of its members. He was arrested and his wife, suspected of being the driver, is being actively sought.
A few hours later, a second Catalan police officer was also arrested. According to the same media outlet, he had passed on information to Puigdemont’s team, outside of his speech.
Reviews
According to ABC, further arrests are likely to take place in the coming hours.
Throughout the Pyrenees, Puigdemont’s speech and escape caused a lot of noise and fuelled criticism. “It is a disgrace for everyone” that the pro-independence leader was able to escape with such a device, several sources close to the Mossos told ABC.
“An unbearable humiliation. One more. It is painful to witness this madness firsthand, for which (the President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez) is the main person responsible,” the president of the Popular Party (PP, right), Alberto Núñez Feijóo, lashed out at X.
Carles Puigdemont, who is still the subject of an arrest warrant in Spain, had promised many times: despite the risk of being arrested and sent to prison, he would return for the inauguration session of the new president of the Catalan regional executive.
Despite the amnesty law negotiated by Pedro Sánchez in exchange for the support of Junts per Catalunya (Together for Catalonia), Carles Puigdemont’s party, the latter remains wanted by the Spanish justice system. Highly criticised by the opposition, this amnesty law is at the centre of multiple legal debates and, on 1 July, the Supreme Court decided that it only applied to some of the crimes charged to the pro-independence leader.
Source: BFM TV
