Spanish prosecutors ask for new warrant against exiled Catalan leader Puigdemont

Madrid, July 25

The Spanish state prosecutor's office has asked the country's Supreme Court to reactivate an international search warrant against former Catalan President Carles Puigdemont after the July 5 decision by the General Court of the European Union (EU) to withdraw his immunity as a member of the European Parliament (MEP).

Puigdemont currently lives in exile in Belgium, reports Xinhua news agency.

He left Spain in the wake of the Catalan independence referendum on October 1st, 2017, which was declared illegal by the Spanish Constitutional Court.

The prosecutor's decision on Monday came a day after the results of the Spain's general election left Puigdemont's hardline separatist Together for Catalonia party (JuntsXCat) in the role of kingmaker as the party holds crucial parliamentary seats.

The big question the country faces now is whether People's Party (PP) leader Alberto Nunez Feijoo becomes the next Prime Minister or whether Socialist Party (PSOE) leader Pedro Sanchez can summon enough support to remain in power.

On Twitter, Puigdemont commented that "one day you are decisive in order to form a Spanish government, the next day Spain orders your arrest".

Puigdemont's party won seven seats in Spain's 350-seat Congress of Deputies (lower house of Parliament) in Sunday's election and its support could enable Sanchez, whose PSOE won 122 seats, to form a government with the added support of the left-wing progressive electoral platform Sumar, the Basque Nationalist Party (PNV), the likewise nationalist Basque Country Unite (EH Bildu) political coalition and the Catalan separatist Esquerra Republicana party.

However, that will not be easy, with JuntsXCat leader Laura Borras commenting on Sunday that the party would "not support the investiture of any president of the Spanish state unless they deal with a solution to the political conflict in Catalonia, and that comes through amnesty and self-determination".

Monday's request for an arrest warrant for Puigdemont is only likely to harden that position.

Monday also saw JuntsXCat MEP Clara Ponsati detained and subsequently released in Barcelona for disobedience on orders of judge Pablo Llanera after she failed to attend a court hearing in April.

Ponsati returned to Spain at the end of March after five years in exile as she, too, left the country in the wake of the referendum.