Carles Puigdemont, former Catalan independence president, arrested in Sardinia, according to his lawyer
The MEP was wanted by the Spanish authorities for organizing a referendum that Madrid deemed illegal, on Catalonia’s independence.
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Carles Puigdemont, a former Catalan president and member of the European Parliament, has been arrested by Italian authorities in Sardinia, his lawyer, Gonzalo Boi, announced on the day Twitter It was confirmed by a judicial source in the newspaper Country. The politician was wanted by the Spanish justice for four years, because he organized an illegal referendum on Catalonia’s independence. Carles Puigdemont fled to Belgium in 2017, before being elected to the European Parliament in 2019. The European Parliament lifted his immunity in March.
His arrest comes a week after negotiations resumed between the Spanish government and Catalan separatists over the region’s future. The conversation stopped for about a year and a half. The attempted secession, in October 2017, from this northeastern region of the country, with a population of 7.8 million, was one of the worst crises that Spain had experienced since the end of Franco’s dictatorship in 1975.
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