FUGITIVE CATALAN LEADER Carles Puigdemont has fled Spain again, after briefly addressing supporters in Barcelona Friday. It is understood that he has made his way back to Belgium.

Puigdemont, who fled abroad after a failed independence bid in 2017, defied a Spanish arrest warrant on Thursday, to deliver a speech to thousands outside the Catalonian regional parliament in Barcelona.

He was expected to enter the parliament building to cast his ballot in a leadership vote for the region, but disappeared into the crowd instead.

The election saw Socialist Party of Catalonia candidate Salvador Illa chosen as the region’s new leader.

The Secretary General of Puigdemont’s JxCAT party, Josep Turull, said that he was “on his way back to Waterloo”.

Hi lawyer, Gonzalo Boye, said that he had fled abroad, and would issue a statement either today or tomorrow.

Catalonian police have not ruled out that he is still in Barcelone and have launched a manhunt for him. Two officer were arrested on suspicion of assisting his escape, but were released after a few hours. The force has insisted that there is no collusion.

Puigdemont led the regional government of Catalonia in 2017, when it pushed ahead with an independence referendum despite a court ban, followed by a short-lived declaration of independence.

He fled Spain shortly after the independence bid to avoid prosecution and has since lived in Belgium and more recently France.

While Spain’s parliament in May passed an amnesty law for those involved in the botched secession bid, the Supreme Court ruled on July 1 that the measure would not fully apply to Puigdemont.

Puigdemont’s dramatic return came just days after Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez’s Socialists struck a deal with moderate Catalan separatist party ERC — which competes with Puigdemont’s more hardline JxCAT — to make the Socialist candidate, Salvador Illa, the next head of the Catalan regional government.

The Socialists won the most seats in a regional election in May but failed to get a majority and the support of the ERC is crucial.

If a new Catalan regional government is not formed by 26 August, fresh elections will be held in October.