Catalan leader Puigdemont returns to Spain after 7 years as a fugitive

His return represents a direct challenge to Spain’s judicial authorities and the country’s fragile coalition government, as it threatens to renew tensions between Catalan separatists and Madrid.

Puigdemont, 61, had been based primarily in Belgium since the 2017 breakaway referendum. He was a member of the European Parliament from 2019 until last month. He successfully avoided extradition, including after being detained in Italy and in Germany.

But in recent days he announced his intention to show up at Catalonia’s parliament in Barcelona for the scheduled induction of a political rival as the new regional president.

Puigdemont addressed his supporters at the welcome rally ahead of the parliamentary session on Thursday morning, before leading a march toward the parliament building. Some people carried masks of his face.

The regional police had warned that they intended to obey orders to arrest him. In anticipation, they sealed off most entrances to the park where the parliament building is located, and planned to deploy riot police on Thursday, Spanish media reported.

In a video released Wednesday, previewing his plan to return, Puigdemont lamented that he “cannot attend freely” and complained of “a long persecution.”

“That I can attend the parliament should be normal,” he said. “That to do so risks an arrest that would be arbitrary and illegal is evidence of the democratic anomaly that we have the duty to denounce and fight.”

Puigdemont, a former journalist who was first elected to the Catalan parliament in 2006, has centered his political career on the aspiration for the wealthy northeast region to exert independence from Spain.

He was the regional president at the time of the 2017 referendum that Spain’s Constitutional Court and centralized government in Madrid determined was illegal. Afterward, the Spanish government imposed direct rule and arrested his allies, while Puigdemont escaped.

Last year, Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez’s Socialist Party struck a contentious deal to remain in power, offering amnesty to those involved in organizing referendums in 2014 and 2017.

But the legislation has been challenged by the Supreme Court, raising questions about whether the amnesty deal would allow the pardoning of Puigdemont, who is wanted on charges of misuse of public funds.

Some analysts assessed that his return reflects an attempt to restore his relevance, which waned while he was in exile.

He campaigned from France for the most recent regional election, in May. But pro-independence parties lost their governing majority.

Salvador Illa, a Socialist, got the nod as the next regional president as a result of a deal brokered with a moderate pro-independence party. He would be the first non-separatist leader of Catalonia in about a decade.