Puigdemont’s conduct described as “inappropriate” after escaping from political rally

Madrid. According to his closest collaborators, the former president of Catalonia, Carles Puigdemont, “is already out of Spain”, heading to “Belgium, to Waterloo”, where he lives, after having starred in the parliamentary debate on the investiture of the socialist Salvador Illa as president of the Generalitat, which will govern the region for the next four years. Both the outgoing Catalan government, headed by the pro-independence Pere Aragonés, and the police leadership of the Mossos d’Esquadra described Puigdemont’s conduct yesterday, in which he evaded police control and avoided arrest, as “improper”.

Puigdemont had an arrest warrant in force yesterday, which he avoided after staging a historic escape, in which he evaded the supposedly hermetic police presence deployed by the Catalan regional police, which had been tasked with apprehending the former president by order of the Spanish Supreme Court. But the hundreds of Catalan police officers deployed did not detect Puigdemont’s distraction maneuver, who after giving a brief political rally outside the regional Parliament disappeared behind the stage, put on a straw hat and disappeared into the crowd. The Catalan police tried to follow him but, according to the version of their leadership, “they were helped by the green lights and it was impossible to keep up with him,” so he escaped into the city traffic. A few minutes later, when he was already out of sight of the agents, the vehicle in which he fled was located, which belonged to an autonomous agent who was arrested, and after eight hours of activating the so-called “Operation Cage”, which was last launched after the brutal Islamist attack in August 2017 on the central streets of Las Ramblas and which served to arrest the perpetrator of the massacre, the whereabouts of the former president could not be located.

The Spanish Prime Minister, the socialist Félix Bolaños, downplayed the incident and placed all responsibility on the Catalan government and its police: “The Mossos are a judicial police force and had the obligation to have arrested Puigdemont, but the important thing here is that Salvador Illa’s investiture was carried out,” he said.

In addition, Supreme Court judge Pablo Llarena requested a report on the actions of law enforcement, which could lead to a series of lawsuits for malfeasance.

Meanwhile, the newly sworn-in Catalan president, the socialist Illa, held a first public meeting with the outgoing president for the transfer of powers. Illa will become the first socialist president after 15 years of nationalist governments, during which the failed unilateral declaration of independence of October 2017 was carried out.