Ex-Catalan leader evades Spanish police on return after seven years as fugitive

Police launched a manhunt in Barcelona on Thursday for ex-Catalonia leader Carles Puigdemont, a celebrated separatist who seven years after fleeing Spain sensationally returned to the country despite an outstanding arrest warrant.

Mr Puigdemont had previously announced his intention to be in Spain on the day Catalonia’s parliament is due to swear in a new president.

The 61-year-old fugitive initially lived in Belgium after leaving Spain in 2017, but his most recent place of residence was not known.

He kept his travel plans secret before setting out for the wealthy Catalan region in north-eastern Spain.

He gave a speech in front of a large crowd of supporters in central Barcelona under the noses of police officers, who made no attempt to detain him.

After his speech, in a cloak-and-dagger moment, he entered an adjacent marquee before hurrying out of an exit and jumping into a waiting car that sped away, according to an Associated Press photographer who witnessed his departure.

Authorities, who may have wanted to avoid confrontation with the crowd of several thousand separatist supporters, had set up a police cordon at the nearby regional parliament where Mr Puigdemont had been expected to go afterwards.

Once he had slipped away, traffic jams built up as roadside police units carried out vehicle checks across the city in an effort to catch him. Police also checked vehicles heading on highways to neighbouring France.

Mr Puigdemont faces charges of embezzlement for his part in an attempt to break Catalonia away from the rest of Spain in 2017. As regional president and separatist party leader at the time, he was a key player in an independence referendum that was outlawed by the central government but went ahead anyway.

Those events triggered a political crisis that unsettled Spain for months.

Mr Puigdemont’s appearance in Barcelona, Catalonia’s capital, and his game of cat-and-mouse with police stole the show on a day when a new government was being sworn in at the regional parliament.

Local police were deployed in a security ring around a section of the park where Catalonia’s parliament building is located behind walls.

Meanwhile, Mr Puigdemont, wearing a dark suit, white shirt and tie, walked with supporters to the nearby stage where he gave his speech.

Addressing the crowd in the park and at times pumping his fist, he accused Spanish authorities of “a crackdown” on the Catalan separatist movement.

“For the last seven years we have been persecuted because we wanted to hear the voice of the Catalan people,” he said. “They have made being Catalan into something suspicious.”

He added: “All people have the right to self-determination.”

The turn of events is likely to bring political recriminations.

The leader of the Popular Party, the main opposition to Spain’s left-of-centre coalition government which has long rebuffed Catalonia’s independence movement, condemned Mr Puigdemont’s return.

Alberto Nunez Feijoo posted on X, formerly Twitter, that Mr Puigdemont’s reappearance is an “unbearable humiliation” that damages Spain’s reputation.

Spain’s government encouraged a deal brokered after months of deadlock between Salvador Illa’s Catalan Socialist Party (PSC) and the other main Catalan separatist party and left-wing Esquerra Republicana (ERC). That deal had ensured just enough support in Catalonia’s parliament for Mr Illa to become the next regional president on Thursday.

Speaking to Catalan politicians before the vote, Mr Illa called for reconciliation and respect for Spain’s controversial amnesty Bill. He vowed to govern for all Catalans after years of bitter divisions between those in favour of independence and those against it.

Mr Puigdemont has dedicated his career to the goal of carving out a new country in north-east Spain – a struggle which is decades-old. His largely uncompromising approach has brought political conflict with other separatist parties as well as with Spain’s central government.

A contentious amnesty Bill, crafted by Spain’s Socialist-led coalition government, could potentially clear him and hundreds of other supporters of Catalan independence of any wrongdoing in the 2017 ballot. Spain’s central government and the Constitutional Court declared at the time that the referendum was illegal.

But the Bill, approved by Spain’s Parliament earlier this year, is being challenged by the Supreme Court, which argues that the pardon does not apply to embezzlement, unlike other crimes that Mr Puigdemont had previously been charged with.

Mr Puigdemont could be placed in pre-trial detention if he is arrested.