Catalan independentist Carles Puigdemont soon back in Belgium
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Briefly arrested in Sardinia and free to move, the MEP and former president of Catalonia, the independentist Carles Puigdemont, announced this Saturday that he would return to Belgium on Monday.
After spending a night in a high security prison in Sardinia, the former Catalan president Carles Puigdemont was able to walk freely this Saturday. He took the opportunity to give a press conference during which he announced that he would return to Belgium on Monday, but would return to Italy in early October.
The independentist in summer stopped Thursday evening on his arrival at Alghero airport, where he was to participate in the Catalan Adifolk festival. He was released on Friday evening after pledging to be present on October 4 for a hearing on his extradition to Spain.
“ I plan to return to Brussels on Monday, as there is a meeting of the Committee on Foreign Trade (of the European Parliament), of which I am a member », He declared in Alghero, a Sardinian city of Catalan culture. ” On October 4, I was summoned to the court in Sassari. I will indeed be present, because every time I have been summoned by the courts, I am presented “, He assured.
Puigdemont attacks Madrid
During his press conference, Puigdemont, in exile for four years, took the opportunity to send a message to Madrid, accusing him of wanting to persecute Catalan independence, says our correspondent in Madrid, Diane Cambon. He declared that he would never give up traveling and making the Catalan cause known to the world, so that “ separatists can obtain the right to self-determination “.
Accused by the Spanish courts of having organized the illegal referendum on independence in October 2017, Puigdemont continued to defend the unilateral path to obtain the sovereignty of Catalonia. For him, the dialogue started with Madrid is not the solution to the conflict.
On Saturday, he hinted that the government of Pedro Sanchez had orchestrated his arrest. Or, the left-wing executive would have gone well with this new incident with Puigdemont, which represents a risk for the rest of the negotiations on the Catalan political conflict.