Ex-Catalan Leader Puigdemont Remanded In custody By German Court

 

Carles Puigdemont

A German court has ruled that Catalonia's former pro-independence leader Carles Puigdemont must remain in custody pending his possible extradition to Spain, where he is wanted on "rebellion" charges.

Puigdemont will "remain in detention for the time being, until a decision is made concerning the extradition procedure," the regional court in Kiel, northern Germany, announced late on Monday, a day after Puigdemont was arrested.

The former Catalan leader's detention in Germany, which sparked angry protests back in Catalonia, comes five months after he went on the run as Spanish prosecutors sought to charge him with sedition and rebellion in the wake of a vote by the Catalan parliament to declare independence.

The court in northern Germany turned down a request from Puigdemont's legal team for him to be released pending the extradition decision by German authorities.

He was arrested on Sunday after he crossed the border into Germany from Denmark, under a European warrant issued by Spain.

According to Puigdemont's lawyer Jaume Alonso-Cuevillas, he was on his way back to Belgium, where he fled after Spanish authorities moved to impose direct rule over Catalonia.

A decision on extradition must normally be made within 60 days under German law. A spokeswoman for the prosecutor's office for Schleswig-Holstein state told AFP it would "probably not come this week" ahead of the four-day Easter holiday.

Puigdemont's detention marks the latest chapter in a secession saga that has bitterly divided Catalans and triggered Spain's worst political crisis in decades.

It lands an unwanted diplomatic hot potato in German Chancellor Angela Merkel's lap less than two weeks after her new government was sworn in.

Her spokesman insisted Monday that the decision on Puigdemont's extradition rested solely in the hands of the German regional justice authorities.




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