Puigdemont's trip to Denmark could lead to his arrest, warns Spain
Monday, January 22, 2018 @ 11:06 AM
IF FORMER Catalunya regional president Carles Puigdemont attempts to travel to Denmark, Spain's State prosecution service will immediately issue an international arrest warrant, according to interior minister Juan Ignacio Zoido.
Puigdemont, who has been in exile in Belgium since a few days after the disputed independence referendum on October 1, has announced his intentions to travel to Copenhagen University to take part in a debate tomorrow (Monday).
At present, the only arrest warrant hanging over Puigdemont is a national one, meaning if he sets foot on Spanish soil again, he will be taken straight into custody, but he is safe from the handcuffs anywhere else in the world.
This could change, however, if Puigdemont goes to tomorrow's debate in the Danish university's political sciences faculty at 14.00 titled, Catalunya and Europe: At a crossroads with democracy?
Puigdemont's lawyer Jaume Alonso-Cuevillas said on a Catalunya radio station that if the Spanish State had the European arrest warrant 'very prepared', the 'risk of arrest was high'.
The debate rages on in Catalunya after the pro-secession parties gained most of the votes in a regional election called by Spain on December 21.
Whilst the most-voted party was centre-right Ciudadanos, which is totally against allowing a referendum on independence and backs the State's police action to try to stop it going ahead in October, it does not have anywhere near a majority.
Read more at thinkSPAIN.com