‘I didn’t hide in the trunk’: Carles Puigdemont explains his escape from Catalonia

Catalan independence activist Carles Puigdemont has denied rumours about how he fled Spain in an opinion piece published in a newspaper. Political.

“There was no need to hide in the trunk of a car,” he said. He escaped “in the back seat” of a white Honda rented from a regional police officer and crossed the border into France.

The politician, who has been on the run from Spanish justice since leading Catalonia’s unilateral declaration of independence in 2017, said he arrived in the region two days before speaking “to a crowd” of supporters.

The intention was to attend “a debate on the inauguration of the new president of the Catalan government.” However, “the police sealed off the area,” so the independence leader had to “activate an alternative plan: to speak at the event, avoid illegal arrest, and leave Spain.”

“I didn’t come back to Catalonia to be arrested. I came back to exercise my right to resist oppression,” said Puigdemont, a refugee in Belgium since 2017.

Elected to the Catalan parliament by Junts, the independence activist said he was “among the persecuted politicians and activists to whom the amnesty law should be applied” in Spain. And he accused “politicized Spanish judges” of ordering “the Catalan police to seize the opportunity” to arrest him.

Regional police, city. “Moss d’Escadre” under fire for failing to capture Puigdemont. Two agents They were detained on suspicion of complicity in the escape. The Supreme Court of Spain has asked the Ministry of the Interior and the Mossos d’Esquadra for clarification.

Puigdemont is on the run after organizing an illegal referendum on Catalan independence. Despite an amnesty law drafted by Pedro Sanchez allowing the government to remain in Spain, the politician remains accused of embezzling public funds.