BERLIN: German police on Sunday arrested Catalonia's former president Carles Puigdemont as he crossed over by car from Denmark.

Puigdemont "was arrested today at 11:19 am by Schleswig-Holstein's highway patrol force," a German police spokesman told AFP, adding that the detention was based on a European warrant.

"He is now in police custody", added the spokesman.

Puigdemont's party spokeswoman Anna Grabalosa also separately confirmed that he was detained on arrival in Germany from Denmark.

"It happened as he crossed the Danish-German border. He was treated well and all his lawyers are there. That is all I can say," she said.

Puigdemont is wanted by Spain on charges of "rebellion" and "sedition", over his independence bid for Catalan.

He had been visiting Finland since Thursday, but slipped out of the Nordic country before Finnish police could detain him.

Puigdemont's lawyer Jaume Alonso-Cuevillas, said on Twitter that Puigdemont was picked up by German police as he was travelling back to Belgium where he has been living in self-imposed exile. </s> Spanish intelligence agents had been tracking the movements of the former Catalan president Carles Puigdemont using the geolocation service on his friend’s mobile phone before he was detained in Germany at the weekend, according to reports.

Puigdemont was detained under a European arrest warrant in the northern German province of Schleswig-Holstein on Sunday morning as he journeyed by car from Helsinki to Brussels, where he has been living in self-imposed exile since Catalonia’s unilateral declaration of independence last October.

Sources in Spain’s National Intelligence Centre (CNI) told Spanish media outlets that the surveillance team had used the geolocation service on the mobile phone of at least one of Puigdemont’s companions to monitor his movements, as well as fitting a tracking device to the Renault Espace the group had been travelling in. Twelve CNI agents were involved in the operation.

Puigdemont was remanded in custody in Germany on Monday. The German authorities have 60 days in which to reach a decision on the extradition request, which Puigdemont opposed during a hearing. Spain wants to extradite him on charges of rebellion, sedition and misuse of public funds in relation to that declaration.

The Madrid government, irked that Puigdemont was using his freedom of movement to address meetings about Catalan independence in Denmark, Switzerland and Finland, had hinted at plans to revoke Puigdemont’s passport when on Friday the Spanish supreme court judge Pablo Llarena revived the international warrant for his arrest that had been rescinded in December.

The tracking device on the Espace, which had Belgian number

plates, was fitted in Waterloo, the small Belgian town where the former president had installed himself in self-imposed exile, Spanish media reported.

Puigdemont had been visiting Finland since Thursday for talks with lawmakers, but when the car left Waterloo on Friday morning and began travelling north, they suspected that Puigdemont was planning to return to Belgium by car.

It appears that he took the ferry from Helsinki to Stockholm from where he began the car journey to the border between Denmark and Germany.

Ernst Walter, president of the German police union, said on Bayern 2 radio that he was surprised that Puigdemont was not detained in Denmark under the international arrest warrant, suggesting that the Madrid authorities had preferred to wait until he was on German soil.

Security sources told Spanish media there were four other people in the car with Puigdemont when it was stopped at a petrol station in Schleswig-Holstein.



One was the businessman Josep María Matamala Alsina, a close confidant of the former president who is said to be one of the people bankrolling Puigdemont’s life abroad.

The second was Josep Lluis Alay Rodríguez, a specialist in contemporary Tibetan and Mongolian history at the University of Barcelona who is also commissioner for international relations in the city’s provincial government, which claims he was he was there on official business.

Police sources told Spanish media that the other two, an off-duty member of the Catalan Mossos d’Esquadra police force, Xabier Goicoechea Fernández, and Carlos de Pedro López, were the drivers who had made the trip from Waterloo to Stockholm, a 995-mile (1,600km) journey that they covered in just over 24 hours.

Lluís Escolà, another off-duty Mossos officer who has been with Puigdemont since he fled to Belgium, claims he discovered the tracking device on the car two months ago and reported it to Belgian police.

Escolà also claimed Puigdemont was aware that he was being tracked but thought he could still make it back to Brussels before he was detained. </s> German prosecutors have asked a court to permit the extradition of former Catalan separatist leader Carles Puigdemont to Spain.

Prosecutors in the northern town of Schleswig said on Tuesday they have submitted a request to the regional court following “intensive examination” of the European arrest warrant issued by Spain.

Puigdemont has been detained in Germany since 25 March. Spain accuses the 55-year-old of rebellion in organising an unauthorised referendum.

The Schleswig court is likely to take several days to decide whether to extradite Puigdemont.

His lawyers have urged the German government to intervene in the case, citing the “political dimension.” </s> Riot police clashed with protesters on Sunday evening in Barcelona, hours after ex-Catalan president Carles Puigdemont was detained near the German-Danish border.

Around 55,000 pro-independence marchers took to the streets of the Catalan capital to show their support for the 55-year-old and to protest his arrest. A separate protest was held in Girona, where Mr Puigdemont served as mayor.

The situation in Barcelona escalated in the evening as protesters fought running battles with riot police. Local authorities reported dozens of injuries and many arrests. In videos posted on a Spanish news website, police used their batons and appeared to fire warning shots.

Mr Puigdemont was en route from Finland to Belgium, his self-imposed home-in-exile for the last five months, when he was detained shortly after 11am at an Autobahn petrol station near the northern town of Schleswig.

The separatist leader was in custody on Sunday night while German authorities weigh up a European arrest warrant (EWA) from Spain on charges of rebellion, sedition and embezzlement.

German media reports say Spanish intelligence tipped off German police that he had crossed the border from Denmark.

Berlin faces a political dilemma with uncomfortable historical overtones after the arrest on Sunday morning.

Mr Puigdemont is wanted in Spain on charges of rebellion and sedition arising from his role in organising an October referendum on Catalan independence. He faces a 30-year prison sentence if convicted.

News of the arrest in Germany caused uproar in Catalonia, which declared independence after a referendum dismissed as unconstitutional by Madrid, which then imposed direct rule.

On social media, Catalonians likened the detention of Mr Puigdemont to the arrest of leftist Catalan president Lluis Companys by the Gestapo. They extradited Mr Companys to Franco’s Spain in 1940, where he was held in solitary confinement, tortured and eventually executed by firing squad.

“If Germany collaborates with the Spanish authoritarian government,” wrote one Twitter user, “Europe will be dead.”

Spain reactivated its arrest warrant on Friday, while Mr Puigdemont was in Finland delivering a lecture. His attorney, Jaume Alonso-Cuevillas, said Mr Puigdemont had left Finland and was en route to Belgium “where he had intended to put himself, as always, at the disposal of the Belgian justice system”.

Ralph Döpper, deputy state prosecutor in Schleswig-Holstein, confirmed the politician was in police custody while authorities decided whether to act on the warrant.

He said the decision whether to extradite him to Spain, or release him, would probably come on Monday.

“We are at the start of the examination process,” said Mr Döpper.

He gave no information on how it came to the detention of Mr Puigdemont and four others, and how Autobahn police knew where to find them.

“We simply had the information that he was supposed to be in Germany or had entered the country,” he said.

The ex-politician is reportedly being held in a prison in the town of Neumünster, an hour north of Hamburg.

His detention has seriously ratcheted up tensions in Catalonia, where separatists hold a majority in the regional parliament after elections in December. They have failed to form a government and have abandoned plans to name a new president following the arrest of their latest candidate, Jordi Turull.

Mr Puigdemont had sought to be sworn in and rule from Belgium via video conference, but abandoned his bid on March 1st with “the greatest sadness”. In a video message he insisted he would not abandon the idea of setting up a government in exile.

“I will not throw in the towel. I will not quit. I will not give up in the face of the illegitimate behaviour of those who lost at the ballot box,” he said. In leaked private conversations with colleagues in Barcelona, however, he appeared to admit defeat and acknowledge that Madrid “has won”.

Under the rules of the EWA, active since 2004, a court in one EU member state can only extradite a person sought by another member state if they are confident the suspect will face equivalent fair legal procedures and trial. </s> BARCELONA, Spain -- Fugitive former Catalan leader Carles Puigdemont is being held by German police on a Spanish arrest warrant after trying to cross into Germany from Denmark.

Police in the northern state of Schleswig-Holstein said highway police arrested Puigdemont on Sunday morning near the A7 highway that leads from Denmark into Germany.

They said "Mr. Puigdemont is currently in police custody" and refused to give further details.

His lawyer, Jaume Alonso-Cuevillas, confirmed to the Associated Press that German police stopped Puigdemont on Sunday when he was crossing the border. He says Puigdemont is at a police station.

Alonso-Cuevillas says Puigdemont was on his way back to Belgium where he has been staying since fleeing Spain following a failed bid by his regional government in October to declare independence from Spain.

A Spanish Supreme Court judge charged 13 Catalan separatist politicians with rebellion Friday for their attempts to make the region independent of Spain, dealing a heavy blow to the secessionist movement. The judge ordered international arrest warrants for the six Catalan officials who are fugitives, including Puigdemont.

Puigdemont faces charges of rebellion and sedition in Spain that could lead to 30 years in prison, BBC News reports. </s> Carles Puigdemont, the deposed Catalan president, was on Sunday detained by police at the German border after Spain reactivated an international warrant for his arrest on charges of rebellion over October’s referendum and declaration of independence.

Mr Puigdemont’s lawyer, Jaume Alonso-Cuevillas, said he was detained while crossing the border from Denmark by car on his way back to Belgium from Finland, where he had travelled to speak at an event.

"By now he is in a police station and his legal defence has already been activated," Mr Alonso-Cuevillas said.

The Spanish Supreme Court reissued European Arrest Warrants for Mr Puigdemont and four members of his former cabinet on Friday after charging 13 Catalan independence leaders with rebellion and misappropriation of funds.

The charges could see them jailed for up to 30 years. International arrest warrants were issued for two other separatist politicians, Ana Gabriel and Marta Rovira, who are currently in self-imposed exile in Switzerland.

If Mr Puigdemont does not consent to his extradition to Spain, the request will go before the German courts, a process for which he could be remanded in custody. </s> German prosecutors on Tuesday asked a court to order the extradition of Catalonia’s ousted president Carles Puigdemont on a rebellion charge following his arrest in Germany last month.

The request comes after protests by independence supporters at the weekend in Berlin and Catalonia calling for Puigdemont’s immediate release.

“The prosecutor’s office of Schleswig-Holstein state applied for an extradition arrest warrant against former Catalonian regional president Carles Puigdemont from the superior regional court,” it said in a statement.

It was not immediately clear when the court would rule on Puigdemont’s possible extradition.

Puigdemont was arrested by German police on March 25 as he was travelling from Finland back to Belgium, where he has been living in self-imposed exile since Catalonia’s failed independence bid last October.

The detention came two days after a Spanish judge issued European arrest warrants for Puigdemont and other fugitive separatist leaders.

They have been ordered to stand trial for rebellion, misuse of public funds and disobeying the state for organising last year’s referendum on Catalan independence, which Madrid deemed illegal.

Puigdemont’s arrest has sent tensions soaring at home, triggering a wave of protests in the wealthy northeastern Spanish region.

German judges have ordered Puigdemont to remain in custody in the northern town of Neumuenster as they mull Spain’s request for him to be handed over.

They have 60 days to make a decision.

German media say the request has been complicated by the fact that rebellion, which carries a maximum penalty of 30 years in jail in Spain, is not a crime under German law.

However the prosecutor’s office argued in its statement that the rebellion charge “contains in essence the accusation of calling an unconstitutional referendum despite violent riots that could be expected” matching the German charge of “treason”.

“Word-for-word conformance between the German and Spanish criminal codes is thus not legally required,” it said. </s> German state prosecutors have made a formal request for former Catalan president Carles Puigdemont to be extradited to Spain.

The request at the upper regional court of the state of Schleswig-Holstein on Friday stated that the public prosecutors held the request from Madrid to be admissible.

Puigdemont was arrested in March in Germany on the way back by road from an appearance in Finland, based on Madrid's extradition request on charges of rebellion after he went ahead with an independence referendum in Catalonia in October that Madrid deemed unconstitutional.

The court had previously ruled that the extradition on the basis of rebellion was not permissible, because the comparable German charge of treason stipulates that the defendant must have committed violence.

The prosecution said last month it had received new evidence, namely videos showing violence against Spanish police.

The riots depicted "were on such a scale" that Puigdemont should be extradited on charges of rebellion, the prosecutors said. </s> The German prosecution is processing Catalan ex-president Carles Puigdemont's extradition to Spain from the prison where he is currently being detained, because of the risk that he might flee if allowed to leave on bail. Following his arrest on 25 March, as he crossed the German border on his way back to Belgium from Finland, a local German court has urged the territorial high court - which has the final say on Puigdemont's fate - to extradite the former Catalan president. It was it acting at ...
The Spanish National Police Corps arrest the two Mossos d'Esquadra and Asia History academic, Josep Lluís Alay, who accompanied Puigdemont in the van at the moment he was detained in Germany amid a crime of concealment. On 28 March were released.