Nine years after Catalonia's failed attempt to secede from Spain, the arrest warrant against the Catalan separatist leader and then head of the regional government of Catalonia, Carles Puigdemont, has been lifted. This was announced by the Spanish Supreme Court. The move was preceded by a fundamental decision by the Constitutional Court on the amnesty law for offenses relating to the 2017 independence referendum. The 63-year-old can therefore return to his homeland from exile in Belgium at any time.
The Spanish justice system had tried for years to catch Puigdemont. She issued a national and later a European arrest warrant. The accusations were initially of rebellion and sedition. However, the charge of rebellion was later dropped because the separatists did not incite violence in 2017. The crime of rioting was abolished in 2023. Until the current verdict, however, there was an accusation of embezzlement of public funds - the separatists are said to have enriched themselves personally by using public funds - and not their private ones - for their personal project of a referendum.
The investigating judge Pablo Llarena at the Supreme Court canceled the arrest warrant. The Constitutional Court had previously ruled that the 2024 amnesty also covered the embezzlement of public funds for the illegal independence referendum in 2017.
There was expressly no amnesty in 2024 for cases of personal enrichment. According to the newspaper El PaĂs, the Constitutional Court justified its decision by saying that this interpretation of the amnesty law contradicted "the spirit and purpose of the law." The embezzlement of public funds does not constitute personal enrichment, the Constitutional Court argued in its new fundamental decision.
Background to the independence referendum in 2017
According to separatists, in a controversial referendum in 2017, around 90 percent voted for independence for the financially strong region of Catalonia in the northeast. The Spanish Constitutional Court had previously declared the vote unconstitutional. The conservative central government at the time placed the region under compulsory administration, and Puigdemont and other members of the government fled abroad. The separatists who remained in the country were sentenced to prison terms of up to 13 years.
They were pardoned again by the government under left-wing Prime Minister Pedro SĂĄnchez. In 2024, the SĂĄnchez government passed an amnesty law that was supposed to cover all offenses related to the 2017 independence referendum. But the Supreme Court spoke out against applying the amnesty to Puigdemont and other comrades-in-arms.
Formally, the proceedings were not about Puigdemont as a person. The separatist politician Dolors Bassa had sued against the existing ban on holding office, which the Supreme Court had upheld because of allegations of personal enrichment.
Puigdemont traveled despite an arrest warrant
Despite the Spanish arrest warrants, Puigdemont repeatedly traveled across Europe for lectures and political meetings. In 2024 he made a short visit to Barcelona and gave a short, combative speech to a few thousand supporters. Despite a massive manhunt, the Spanish police were unable to catch him. Puigdemont's Junts party is currently trailing the relatively new separatist and right-wing populist Aliança Catalana in polls.
