Puigdemont pictured during his only known return to Spain since fleeing, in 2024 – an appearance which prompted a police manhunt Spain's Supreme Court has ruled the former president of Catalonia, Carles Puigdemont, can return without fear of arrest nearly a decade after going into self-imposed exile having led a failed independence bid.
The court upheld a decision to lift an arrest warrant for him linked to the referendum his regional government organised in 2017, in defiance of Madrid. Direct rule was imposed on the region soon after the vote and Puigdemont fled to Belgium, where he has been based ever since – with a surprise appearance in Barcelona in 2024 prompting a police manhunt.
But the Spain to which he may return is much different from a decade ago, with Catalan independence now a marginal political issue. Monday's ruling brings to an end a lengthy legal wrangle between the Spanish judiciary and the former Catalan president.
In 2024, Spain's socialist government introduced a controversial amnesty for dozens of Catalan politicians and activists who were involved in the secession drive, but the Supreme Court said Puigdemont and several of his colleagues should be excluded. It argued this was because of the charges against them of alleged financial crimes around staging the referendum.
The Constitutional Court overruled that interpretation earlier this month, and on Monday the Supreme Court rejected an appeal by the far-right Vox party against lifting national arrest warrants for Puigdemont, as well as his former ministers Lluís Puig and Toni Comín, paving the way for their return to Spain.
Puigdemont was elected as a member of the European Parliament (MEP) in 2019 and to the Catalan parliament in 2024 as leader of the region's centre-right Together for Catalonia (JxCat) party.