New Delhi: Former Catalan president Carles Puigdemont was taken into custody in Germany under a European arrest warrant after he crossed from Denmark into Germany. He will appear before a German judge today.
According to reports by German media, the arrest was made following a tipoff from Spain’s intelligence agency to German federal police’s Sirene bureau.
Puigdemont, who has been living in self-imposed exile in Brussels since October, was travelling in a car on the way from Finland to Belgium on Sunday when he was detained.
The Spanish government had reactivated an international arrest warrant for Puigdemont on Friday and he is wanted on charges of sedition, rebellion and misuse of public funds.
According to the local online news portal Focus Online, a German police spokesperson confirmed the arrest, saying that based on a European warrant, Puigdemont was arrested at 11:19 a.m. local time by the Autobahn police force of Schleswig-Holstein, on the Federal Highway 7 in the direction toward Hamburg, from where he wanted to return to Belgium.
In the meantime, the local newspaper Kieler Nachrichten cited judicial circles as saying that Puigdemont was apparently considering applying for asylum in Germany.
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.”
Lawyer Jaume Alonso-Cuevillas said on his Twitter that Puigdemont was on his way back to Belgium where he lives in exile since fleeing Spain.
After the news of his arrest became public, protests broke out across the Spanish region of Catalonia. Clashes between protesters and police left at least 89 people injured and four arrests were made.
Puigdemont has been a fugitive since Catalonia’s failed bid to become independent from Spain last October. He can face up to 25 years in prison in Spain if convicted of charges of rebellion and sedition for organizing an illegal referendum.
