Catalan separatist leader Carles Puigdemont returned to Spain on Thursday after almost seven years in exile, despite being wanted on an arrest warrant.
Puigdemont appeared in Barcelona in the morning, accompanied by politicians from his liberal Junts party, and addressed a crowd of supporters.
“Today I have come here to remind you that we are still here because we have no right to give up,” he said of the fight for Catalonia’s independence from Spain.
“They have been persecuting us for seven years just because we wanted to give a voice to the people of Catalonia,” he continued.
“We have no interest in living in a country where amnesty laws do not grant amnesty,” Puigdemont added, referring to the refusal of the judiciary to apply an amnesty law for secessionists to him.
The police, who were on site in Barcelona with a heavy presence, did not intervene to arrest the 61-year-old.
Mystery over Puigdemont’s whereabouts
But after Puigdemont was able to make an exit from the scene without catching the attention of police, a huge manhunt was launched for him.
Roadblocks have been set up on all major roads leading out of Barcelona. Police officers checked every vehicle trying to leave the city, images shown on state broadcaster RTVE showed.
In some cases, the boots of cars were checked and motorcyclists had to remove their helmets. A white car was being searched for, reported the newspaper El País.
Puigdemont sought to lead Catalonia to independence in 2017 with a referendum that was declared illegal.
He risks arrest as the judiciary accuses him of personal enrichment.
Puigdemont rejected the police’s offer of an arranged and discreet arrest, according to earlier media reports.
Catalonia to elect new leader
Puigdemont said he planned to be present at the election in parliament of Socialist Salvador Illa as Catalonia’s next leader.
Illa, who is believed to have enough backing from Catalan lawmakers, would be the first head of the Catalan government in decades to oppose the region’s secession from Spain.
His party emerged as the strongest force from a snap election in May but needs the support of the ERC, a left-wing separatist party. Illa secured a cooperation deal through concessions on financial issues and the promotion of the Catalan language.
The second-largest separatist party, Puigdemont’s Junts, opposed the agreement.
Accusations of enrichment against Puigdemont
The latest developments in Catalonia follow an amnesty bill passed in the Spanish parliament earlier this year. It ended legal action against Catalan separatists, but cases of personal enrichment are not immune from prosecution.
Puigdemont is not accused of embezzlement.
However, the charge is that he used public funds for his illegal political aims in the 2017 independence referendum, which is tantamount to personal enrichment.
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