Catalan separatist leader Carles Puigdemont returned to Spain on Thursday after nearly seven years in exile, despite an arrest warrant being issued against him.
Puigdemont appeared in Barcelona in the morning, accompanied by politicians from his liberal Junts party, and addressed a crowd of supporters.
“Today I am here to remind you that we are still here, because we have no right to give up,” he said of the fight for Catalonia’s independence from Spain.
“They have been persecuting us for seven years, just because we wanted to give a voice to the people of Catalonia,” he continued.
“We have no interest in living in a country where the amnesty laws do not grant amnesty,” Puigdemont added, referring to the judiciary’s refusal to apply an amnesty law for separatists to him.
The police, who were present in large numbers in Barcelona, did not intervene to arrest the 61-year-old.
Mystery about Puigdemont’s whereabouts
But after Puigdemont managed to escape unnoticed by police, a major manhunt was launched for him.
Roadblocks were set up on all major roads leading out of Barcelona, with police checking every vehicle attempting to leave the city, according to footage from state broadcaster RTVE.
In some cases, the trunks of cars were checked and motorcyclists were forced to remove their helmets. A white car was being searched, the newspaper El País reported.
Puigdemont tried to lead Catalonia to independence in a referendum in 2017, but it was declared illegal.
He is at risk of arrest because the judiciary accuses him of personal enrichment.
According to previous media reports, Puigdemont rejected the police’s offer of an organised and discreet arrest.
Catalonia elects new leader
Puigdemont said he would attend the parliamentary elections of Socialist Salvador Illa as the next leader of Catalonia.
Illa, who reportedly has strong support from Catalan lawmakers, would be the first leader of the Catalan government in decades to oppose the region’s secession from Spain.
His party emerged as the strongest force in the early elections in May, but needs the support of the ERC, a left-wing separatist party. Illa secured a cooperation agreement by making concessions on finances and the promotion of the Catalan language.
The second largest separatist party, Puigdemont’s Junts, opposed the deal.
Accusations of enrichment against Puigdemont
The latest developments in Catalonia follow an amnesty law passed by the Spanish parliament earlier this year, which ended the trial of Catalan separatists, but cases of personal enrichment are not immune from prosecution.
Puigdemont is not accused of embezzlement.
However, the charges allege that he used government funds for his illegal political purposes in the 2017 independence referendum, which amounts to personal enrichment.
