Puigdemont ‘never intended to surrender’ to Spanish police

Catalan pro-independence leader Carles Puigdemont, who entered Spain for the first time in seven years this week in a whirlwind appearance in Barcelona, despite a warrant for his arrest, said on Saturday that he had “never intended” to surrender.

“I have never had the intention of handing myself over to a judicial authority that is competent neither to persecute us (...) nor to dispense justice, but is motivated by political objectives,” he said in a video published on X three days after his visit to Barcelona.

Saying he was speaking from his home in Waterloo, Belgium, he said he had wanted “to enter parliament to attend the session [of the investiture of the head of the Catalan executive] and to be able to exercise my right to speak and my right to vote”.

But the police presence nearby prevented him from doing so, he said. He nevertheless managed to make a speech on a podium in the city for several minutes.

"I would not have had the slightest opportunity to address the chamber, which was my objective"

“In this context, attempting to gain access to parliament would have meant certain arrest, I would not have had the slightest opportunity to address the chamber, which was my objective,” he said.

Puigdemont says he then decided to flee “in a context of repression with total encirclement” in order to “reach my Belgian residence here in Waterloo”.

“It was necessary to denounce at international level a Spanish state that does not behave democratically when it allows Supreme Court judges to make a mockery of the laws approved by its parliament,” he said, referring to the amnesty law that was fiercely negotiated with the Spanish government in exchange for pro-independence support in parliament, and which currently does not apply to him. 

^{Carles Puigdemont on stage in Barcelona giving a speech to his supporters © PHOTO PACO FREIRE / SOPA IMAGES VIA ZUMA PRESS WIRE}