Laurence Dollimore
THE whereabouts of Carles Puigdemont remain unknown after he seemingly vanished into thin air on Thursday.
The exiled former leader of Spain’s Catalunya region managed to escape after delivering a defiant speech near the autonomous community’s parliament this morning.
He told hundreds of supporters that an independence referendum ‘is never and never will be illegal’.
The 61-year-old was exiled over his illegal referendum on Catalan independence in 2017.
According to Politico, the regional Mossos d’Esquadra police force have been searching sewers for the separatist, and even sealed off a door that connects the regional parliament building with the Barcelona Zoo.
They even raided the 300-year-old building’s basement to check he was not hiding down there.
“These are standard security procedures that are carried out before any investiture ceremony,” a spokesperson for the force told the publication.
However there are questions over how much will there is to arrest Puigdemont among the rank and file of the Mossos d’Esquadra.
At least two officers have been arrested today over their alleged involvement in helping Puigdemont escape.
The force’s three top officials will appear at a press conference tomorrow at 11am to give their explanations about what happened today.
The press conference has been called by the Ministry of the Interior and will be attended by Joan Ignasi Elena i Garcia, Minister of the Interior, and Pere Ferrer, Director General of the Police.
The Chief Commissioner of the Mossos, Eduard Sallent, and the Commissioner of the Prefecture, Rosa Bosch, will also appear.
It comes after it emerged this evening that a second officer had been arrested over their alleged involvement – but details remain scant.
The first male officer was cuffed and interrogated earlier today.
He is accused of being the owner of a vehicle which investigators believe Puigdemont used to flee the city after making a brief speech in front of thousands of supporters next to the iconic Arc de Triomf.
Puigdemont, the leader of the pro-independence Junts per Catalunya party, has lived in exile ever since he fled Spain in the boot of a car seven years ago after the Spanish government launched criminal charges for his role in the 2017 independence drive.
As Catalan president, Puigdemont organised a botched independence referendum, which was deemed illegal, and unilaterally declared Catalunya as an independent state, provoking Spain’s most significant political crisis since the Franco dictatorship.
Thousands of pro-independence activists descended on Parc de la Ciutadella to greet a returning Puigdemont. Credit: Cordon Press
This morning, Puigdemont crossed the Spanish border for the first time since 2017 to coincide with the investiture debate of Salvador Illa, a Socialist ally of Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez who appears set to become the region’s first pro-unity president in 14 years.
Flanked by members of his Junts party, including the regional parliamentary speaker Josep Rull, Puigdemont gave a brief speech to 2,500 pro-independence supporters outside the parliament building.
Videos emerged on social media of supporters clashing with counter-protesters from far-right Vox and Spanish police who launched tear gas as tensions boiled over.
After the speech, Puigdemont quickly disappeared, prompting police to launch ‘Operation Cage’, an attempt to block all exits out of Barcelona so that police can arrest the former regional president.
According to reports, police are searching for the location of a white car, the vehicle owned by the arrested Mossos officer, which they believe Puigdemont used to escape the city and likely head towards the French border.
Puigdemont is currently subject to an arrest warrant regarding the alleged embezzlement of public funds whilst he was regional premier.
A highly controversial amnesty law passed earlier this year by the Socialist-led government of Pedro Sanchez was deemed to not apply to the charge laid against Puigdemont, meaning any return to Spain was fraught with the risk of arrest.
However, it appears that Puigdemont has successfully eluded the police, who had vowed to arrest him upon his return.
