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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.
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In this country, there will be no “justice” for the man murdered by the teen, assuming the teen was driving the stolen car. He’ll get a handful of years, be out in half that time. We are literally relying on perpetrators conscience for justice.
@Injustice Cop: what conscience? They have none, otherwise they would not be stealing cars, beating up OAP’s, mugging tourists and raping adults and children.
Don’t think the poor man was on a bike, he was walking
Slap on the wrist coming up, if precedent is anything to go by
@Dermot Blaine: and we’re paying his legal fees.
Isnt it time the whole ‘free’ legal aid racket was reviewed? There’s no such thing as ‘free,’ it just means somebody else is paying. Can the costs not be taken from dole money? Or should nobody be entitled to more than three bites at that cherry? After that, let them have the service of a public defender, a newly qualified lawyer looking for experience. It works well elsewhere.
I’d like to think it would be something other than 18 months with 6 of it suspended but I won’t hold my breath. A man is dead who was just out walking along. It could have been anyone. By all accounts this ‘teen’ and his gang are real pieces of work who should not be anywhere near the general public.
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