A German court on Thursday ruled that former Catalan leader Carles Puigdemont can be released on bail pending a decision on his extradition to Spain, finding that the most serious accusation against him is not punishable under German law.
The state court in the northern town of Schleswig said it set conditions including a 75,000 euros (US$91,739) payment for the 55-year-old to leave prison. It was not immediately clear when he would be released.
“We will see each other tomorrow. Thank you all!” Puigdemont said on Twitter.
Photo: AFP
Puigdemont was detained on a European arrest warrant shortly after entering Germany on March 25. He was trying to drive from Finland to Belgium, where has been living since fleeing to escape arrest in Spain. He has been held at a prison in Neumuenster, Germany.
Spanish authorities accuse Puigdemont of rebellion and misuse of public funds in organizing an unauthorized referendum last year on Catalonia’s independence from Spain.
German prosecutors earlier this week said that the main charge of rebellion is equivalent to Germany’s criminal offense of treason.
German law calls for prison sentences for anyone who “undertakes, by force or through threat of force” to undermine the republic’s existence or change its constitutional order.
However, the court disagreed, saying Puigdemont cannot be extradited for rebellion.
It found that the accusations against Puigdemont do not satisfy the precedents set by previous German rulings, which call for a use or threat of force sufficient to bend the will of authorities.
“Rebellion is the most serious, having the heaviest punishment. It means that if he is extradited for other things, that he can never be prosecuted for rebellion in Spain,” Puigdemont’s Belgian defense lawyer Paul Bekaert said.
“Again a signal has been sent to Spain’s justice system that they are going the wrong way,” he told Belgium’s VRT network.
Judges are to consider Puigdemont’s extradition on the less serious charge of misusing public funds, meaning that he only could face trial for that if he were returned to Spain.
They said that there was no indication he could be “exposed to the danger of political persecution.”
The court said that because Puigdemont cannot be extradited for rebellion he posed less of a flight risk and could be released on bail.
If Puigdemont makes the bail payment and leaves prison, he cannot leave Germany without prosecutors’ approval, must inform prosecutors of every change of residence and report to police once a week, court spokeswoman Frauke Holmer said.
In response to the German court’s ruling, a Spanish official said the government in Madid respects judicial decisions “always, when it likes them and when it doesn’t.”
“Spanish justice will adopt the appropriate measures in the face of these new circumstances,” said the official, who spoke on customary condition of anonymity.
Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) is to visit Russia next month for a summit of the BRICS bloc of developing economies, Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi (王毅) said on Thursday, a move that comes as Moscow and Beijing seek to counter the West’s global influence. Xi’s visit to Russia would be his second since the Kremlin sent troops into Ukraine in February 2022. China claims to take a neutral position in the conflict, but it has backed the Kremlin’s contentions that Russia’s action was provoked by the West, and it continues to supply key components needed by Moscow for
Japan scrambled fighter jets after Russian aircraft flew around the archipelago for the first time in five years, Tokyo said yesterday. From Thursday morning to afternoon, the Russian Tu-142 aircraft flew from the sea between Japan and South Korea toward the southern Okinawa region, the Japanese Ministry of Defense said in a statement. They then traveled north over the Pacific Ocean and finished their journey off the northern island of Hokkaido, it added. The planes did not enter Japanese airspace, but flew over an area subject to a territorial dispute between Japan and Russia, a ministry official said. “In response, we mobilized Air Self-Defense
CRITICISM: ‘One has to choose the lesser of two evils,’ Pope Francis said, as he criticized Trump’s anti-immigrant policies and Harris’ pro-choice position Pope Francis on Friday accused both former US president Donald Trump and US Vice President Kamala Harris of being “against life” as he returned to Rome from a 12-day tour of the Asia-Pacific region. The 87-year-old pontiff’s comments on the US presidential hopefuls came as he defied health concerns to connect with believers from the jungle of Papua New Guinea to the skyscrapers of Singapore. It was Francis’ longest trip in duration and distance since becoming head of the world’s nearly 1.4 billion Roman Catholics more than 11 years ago. Despite the marathon visit, he held a long and spirited
China would train thousands of foreign law enforcement officers to see the world order “develop in a more fair, reasonable and efficient direction,” its minister for public security has said. “We will [also] send police consultants to countries in need to conduct training to help them quickly and effectively improve their law enforcement capabilities,” Chinese Minister of Public Security Wang Xiaohong (王小洪) told an annual global security forum. Wang made the announcement in the eastern city of Lianyungang on Monday in front of law enforcement representatives from 122 countries, regions and international organizations such as Interpol. The forum is part of ongoing