Puigdemont a temporarily free man; Italian judge suspends sentence

Italy will not surrender to Catalan separatist leader Carles Puigdemont to Spain for the time being. The Italian judges were expected to make a decision on this day. But first they want to wait for the decisions of the European Court of Justice.

Puigdemont left the court in Sardinia this afternoon and said he was very happy with the decision. He can go anywhere he wants at the moment. Puigdemont shook hands with dozens of his supporters and then disappeared into a truck.

wait

Spain wants to try the former Catalan president for organizing the independence referendum in 2017. But according to Puigdemont’s lawyer, Agustinangelo Maras, the Sardinian court first wants to wait for two rulings from two European judges.

First, according to Maras, Italian judges want to know how European judges rule on Puigdemont’s political immunity. In recent years, he has been a politically inviolable MEP. But that immunity was lifted by the European Parliament at the beginning of this year at the request of Spain.

The European judge initially did not want the opposite, but now that capitulation to Spain seemed likely, Puigdemont once again asked the judges to restore his political immunity.

Lawful

Moreover, according to Maras, it must first be clear whether the arrest warrant issued by the Spanish Supreme Court is legitimate or not, as the European Union Court of Justice is studying the matter.

Puigdemont was arrested last month while visiting a cultural festival in Sardinia. After his arrest, he was released on parole and remained in Brussels. Today he returned to Sassari on the Italian island to hear the court’s decision.