Ex-Catalan Leader Puigdemont Mulls Return To Spain As EU Lawmaker

Ex-Catalan Leader Puigdemont Mulls Return to Spain as EU Lawmaker

Former Catalan president Carles Puigdemont, who has been in self-imposed exile in Belgium, said on Tuesday he was weighing a visit to Spain to check on imprisoned separatists as an EU lawmaker who has just claimed his seat

MADRID (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 14th January, 2020) Former Catalan president Carles Puigdemont, who has been in self-imposed exile in Belgium, said on Tuesday he was weighing a visit to Spain to check on imprisoned separatists as an EU lawmaker who has just claimed his seat.

He attended his first European Parliament session after being elected to the Strasbourg-based legislature last May. EU lawmakers' immunity protects them from political persecution, detention or legal proceedings.

"I would like to return to Catalonia to visit political prisoners. I know a European Parliament mission will visit prisons on February 23 or 24. I do not rule it out... I should be able to do it," he told Catalan radio RAC1.

Puigdemont fled to Belgium in 2017 before he could be jailed on sedition charges for holding a Catalan independence vote. His deputy, Oriol Junqueras, was convicted in Spain and given a lengthy prison time last fall.

Both men were elected to the European Parliament and officially began their terms last July. But the legislature ended Junqueras' mandate last week at the request of the top Spanish court, which is also seeking a waiver for Puigdemont's immunity after issuing several arrest warrants for him.

The defiant Catalan continued his drive for the region's independence on Twitter, arguing that Catalonia was Europe's internal affair and required a political solution, rather than "repression." He asked Brussels to devise a mechanism that would allow peoples to seek self-determination.