A former leader of Spain's autonomous region Catalonia, who illegally declared independence for the region in 2017, has made a stunning return from self-imposed exile. Carles Puigdemont appeared at a rally near the Catalan parliament in Barcelona on Thursday morning despite facing an outstanding arrest warrant. The AP reports he spoke "in front of a large crowd of supporters" and "under the noses of police officers, who made no attempt to detain him." After speaking on stage, Puigdemont walked into an adjacent marquee tent, "hurried out of an exit and jumped into a waiting car that sped away."
Police were caught off guard. They'd organized "a security ring" near parliament, where Puigdemont was expected to go after the speech, the AP reports. Police then set up roadblocks and checked vehicles around the city, including those traveling in the direction of France, in the hope of caging the former leader, who's believed to have been on foreign soil since 2017. That year, Puigdemont and other of Catalonia's pro-independence leaders organized a referendum, then declared the region independent from Spain. But Spain's constitutional court had ruled the referendum to be illegal.
Facing embezzlement charges, Puigdemont fled for the Belgian capital of Brussels, though his most recent place of residence is unclear, per the AP. Earlier this week, he said he planned to return to Spain Thursday for the swearing in of Catalonia's new government, though his travel plans were kept secret. The 61-year-old fugitive shouted "Long live a free Catalonia!" as he took the stage in Barcelona before accusing authorities of "a crackdown" on the separatist movement, per AFP and the AP. "For the last seven years we have been persecuted because we wanted to hear the voice of the Catalan people," he said. "Holding a referendum is not and will never be a crime," he added, per the BBC.
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One of his goals is to pressure authorities into applying a new amnesty law for those involved in the independence bid to him. Socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez backed the legislation to gain support from Puigdemont's hardline separatist party JxCat, though the Supreme Court ruled it would not fully apply to Puigdemont, per AFP. To ensure moderate Catalan separatist party ERC backs Socialist Salvador Illa as Catalonia's next president, Sanchez also backed a proposal to give Catalonia full control of taxes collected in the region. "If Illa passes Thursday's investiture vote, he will be the first head of Catalonia's regional government who does not come from the separatist camp since 2010," per AFP. (More Carles Puigdemont stories.)
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