Catalan separatist leader Carles Puigdemont will not be surrendered by Italy to Spain for the time being. The Italian judges were expected to make a decision on this today. But they first want to wait for decisions from the European Court of Justice.
Puigdemont walked out of the court in Sardinia this afternoon and said he was very happy with the decision. He can go wherever he pleases for the time being. Puigdemont shook hands with several dozen supporters and then disappeared in a van.
wait
Spain wants to prosecute the former Catalan president for organizing the independence referendum in 2017. But according to Puigdemont’s lawyer Agostinangelo Marras, the court in Sardinia first wants to wait for two rulings from European judges.
First, according to Marras, the Italian judges want to know how European judges judge Puigdemont’s political immunity. In recent years he has been politically inviolable as a Member of the European Parliament. But that immunity was lifted by the European Parliament at the beginning of this year at the request of Spain.
The European judge initially did not want to reverse this, but now that surrender to Spain is apparently a possibility, Puigdemont has once again asked the judges to restore his political immunity.
Legitimate
Moreover, according to Marras, it must first be clear whether the arrest warrant from the Spanish Supreme Court is legitimate, the Court of Justice of the European Union is also examining this question.
Puigdemont was arrested last month while visiting a cultural festival in Sardinia. After his arrest, he was released on parole and stayed in Brussels. Today he returned to Sassari on the Italian island to hear the court’s decision.
–
