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| Catalan leader Carles Puigdemont held by German police | Catalan leader Carles Puigdemont held by German police |
| (35 minutes later) | |
| German police have detained the former Catalan president Carles Puigdemont under a European arrest warrant as he crossed from Denmark into Germany. | |
| Puigdemont, who has been living in self-imposed exile in Brussels since October, was in a car on the way from Finland to Belgium on Sunday when he was detained, having visited Finnish lawmakers in Helsinki. | |
| On Friday the Spanish government reactivated an international arrest warrant for Puigdemont, who is wanted on charges of sedition, rebellion and misuse of public funds. | On Friday the Spanish government reactivated an international arrest warrant for Puigdemont, who is wanted on charges of sedition, rebellion and misuse of public funds. |
| Spain sent a request to the Finnish authorities to detain Puigdemont, who was on a visit to promote the Catalan independence cause. However, the request was written in Spanish and there was a delay while authorities in Madrid had it translated into English. In the meantime, Puigdemont left the country. | |
| In a statement on Sunday Puigdemont’s press officer said: “Carles Puigdemont has been detained in Germany as he crossed from Denmark en route to Belgium. He has been properly treated throughout and is right now in a police station. He was on his way to Belgium where he would be, as always, at the disposal of Belgian justice.” | |
| Puigdemont had covered 808 miles (1,300km) of the 1243-mile car journey when he was stopped at 11.19am, apparently at a petrol station near Schubyon the A7 motorway, 31 miles into German territory, according to his lawyer, Jaume Alonso-Cuevillas. | |
| According to German media reports, the arrest was made following a tip-off from Spain’s intelligence agency to German federal police’s Sirene bureau – part of a network of information-sharing units for national police in the Schengen area. | |
| Puigdemont faces up to 25 years in prison in Spain on charges of rebellion and sedition for organising an illegal referendum for Catalonia that led to a unilateral declaration of independence in October. | Puigdemont faces up to 25 years in prison in Spain on charges of rebellion and sedition for organising an illegal referendum for Catalonia that led to a unilateral declaration of independence in October. |
| According to the rules of the European arrest warrant, Germany has up to 60 days to decide whether to extradite the Catalan politician to Spain. If Puigdemont surrenders to be prosecuted, the decision must be taken within 10 days. | |
| The international warrant, originally issued in November in the wake of the Catalan unilateral declaration of independence and the flight of Puigdemont and other Catalan leaders, was rescinded in December amid Spanish concerns that Belgium would not extradite Puigdemont for the more serious charges, as they are not on the Belgian statute books. | |
| Were he and the others extradited only on the lesser charge of misuse of public funds, they could only be tried for that offence when they were returned to Spain. | |
| Germany can only extradite suspects if the alleged offence is also punishable under German law. The decision is supposed to be made by judicial authorities alone, without political interference. | |
| There is no such crime as rebellion under German law, but there is a crime of high treason, defined as using force or the threat of force to undermine the constitutional order. It carries penalties of from 10 years to life imprisonment. The Catalan UDI was entirely peaceful, if unlawful, although the Spanish authorities may argue that there was an implicit threat of force. The crime of sedition was dropped from German law in the 1970s. | |
| The arrest warrant was reactivated on Friday, as were similar warrants for the other fugitives, Lluís Puig, Meritxell Serret and Toni Comín, who are all in Belgium, and Clara Ponsati, currently in Scotland, where she is teaching at the University of St Andrews. | |
| Warrants were also issued for the arrest of Marta Rovira, secretary general of the secessionist Republican Left party, and Anna Gabriel of the radical Popular Unity Candidacy, both of whom have sought refuge in Switzerland. | |
| On Friday the supreme court judge Pablo Llarena remanded Jordi Turull, the third and latest candidate for the vacant Catalan presidency, and four others, among them the former speaker of the Catalan parliament, in custody. They join Oriol Junqueras, leader of Republican Left, and three others already held on remand in Madrid jails. | |
| Carles Puigdemont | Carles Puigdemont |
| Catalonia | Catalonia |
| Spain | Spain |
| Germany | Germany |
| Europe | Europe |
| news | news |
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