The Spanish Supreme Court lifted the national arrest warrant against Carles Puigdemont Tuesday, paving the way for the return of the Catalan separatist leader in exile after nearly nine years in Belgium.
Speaking from Waterloo on Tuesday evening, Puigdemont called This judgment constitutes “an obvious defeat for the Spanish state” and for the public authorities who delayed the application of the amnesty – but he warned that “it is not, in itself, the solution” to the conflict between Catalonia and Spain.
Supreme Court Justice Pablo Llarena acted after the Spanish Constitutional Court ruled that the 2024 amnesty should apply to the former Catalan minister Dolors Bassawho was convicted of embezzlement. The judge said he had not yet received the full text of Bassa decision and therefore could not confirm whether it created a precedent for the application of amnesty to at Puigdemont case also.
THE move is provisional: it does not yet formally apply the Spanish amnesty law to Puigdemont or dismiss the charges against him.
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