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THOUSANDS HAVE TAKEN part in a demonstration in Barcelona after German police arrested Catalonia’s former president Carles Puigdemont as he crossed over by car from Denmark.
Puigdemont “was arrested today at 11.19am by the Autobahn police force of Schleswig-Holstein,” 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 will appear before a judge tomorrow, German court officials said.
“The sole purpose of this appearance is to verify the identity of the person arrested,” the court said.
“The regional tribunal of Schleswig-Holstein in the town of Schleswig will then have to decide if Mr Puigdemont has to be taken into custody” in view of handing him over to Spain, it added.
Protesters chanted “Puigdemont our president” and “Freedom for the political prisoners”, as they made their way from the city’s main boulevard, Las Ramblas, to the offices of the European Commission in the Catalan capital.
“This Europe is shameful!” they chanted outside of the European Commission offices.
“What they are doing these days is totally disproportionate, we are being treated like criminals for wanting independence,” Rosa Vela, a 60-year-old teacher, told AFP at the demonstration.
Spanish courts
Puigdemont’s arrest came just two days after Spain’s supreme court it would prosecute for “rebellion” 13 Catalan separatists, including Puigdemont and his nominated successor Jordi Turull, over their role in the region’s failed breakaway bid.
If found guilty, they face up to 30 years in prison.
Issuing an international arrest warrant for Puigdemont on Friday, Judge Pablo Llarena accused the ousted Catalan leader of organising the independence referendum in October last year despite a ban from Madrid and “grave risk of violent incidents”.
Puigdemont and four other deputies had fled to Belgium following their proclamation of independence for Catalonia in October, which sank the state into a crisis.
Spanish authorities have since imposed direct rule over the region, suspending the wealthy state’s autonomy over the last five months.
While separatist parties won Catalonia’s regional elections in December called by Madrid, they have been unable to form a government for the region as numerous leaders are in exile abroad or in jail.
Puigdemont himself had said from Belgium in early March that he was abandoning his bid to return as regional president, even though he had run in December’s polls from abroad.
On the way to Belgium
He had been visiting Finland since Thursday, but slipped out of the Nordic country before Finnish police could detain him.
Separately confirming his arrest in Germany, Puigdemont’s party spokeswoman Anna Grabalosa said: “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.”
Puigdemont’s lawyer Jaume Alonso-Cuevillas, said on Twitter that Puigdemont was picked up by German police as he was travelling back to Belgium.
He “was heading to Belgium to present himself, as always, at the disposal of Belgian courts”, added Alonso-Cuevillas.
Meanwhile, the Supreme Court’s decision this week to prosecute the group of separatists has sunk the Catalan parliament deeper into a quagmire as its latest regional presidential candidate Jordi Turull was placed in custody over the breakaway bid.
That marks the third time that parliament has been unable to nominate a new president.
After Puigdemont was forced to withdraw his bid for the presidency, another pro-independence leader Jordi Sanchez faced the same fact as he was jailed.
If a new leader is not elected by 22 May, fresh elections will be triggered.
© – AFP, 2018, First posted at 12.30pm, updated at 5.30pm.
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If Tokyo shot down a drone, which is basically a peice of machinery, I cant see how it could be deemed an act of war, especially when no citizen of China was harmed in any way. Its like if I left my ride on lawn mower out side and my neighbour blew it up, I’d say ah Fred, for fu*ks sake, what are you like. But if Fred tried to blow up my mower while I was on it, then I’d jump fence armed with the rose pruner and turn baritone Fred into a soprano.
Think you need to move house mate, that Fred chap sounds a right bollix.
Ireland should start developing drones through our technology colleges. We’ve got great aeronautical and computer expertise. We could develop valuable intellectual property for export.
I’d rather we didn’t get involved in an industry that espouses extra-judicial killings.
It’s unlikely, in China’s case anyway, that their plan is to use these things for weather, mapping etc.
They are made to kill at a distance, asymmetrical warfare at its most obvious. We don’t need to get involved. It’s dirty. Just because we CAN do something, doesn’t mean we should.
We don’t need to use our colleges to develop drone technology. That’s what we have politics for. Strap wings on ‘em and point them straight up…
No wonder this country will never get anyplace with those sort of attitudes.
Drones are used in certain places to deliver goods to remote areas inaccessible by land. Others are used for research purposes or to aid in search and rescue operations. A drone is not exclusively a weapon of war.
By the start of 2014 ireland will have a debt of approximately 205billion. If you want a future for your kids, we should explore every possible avenue that will excell our growth. If our skill set is building drones, then lets builld them and create thousands of high paid jobs for graduates. With a 205billion debts, its very simple, beggers cant be choosers!
Drone, drone, drone, drone, it’s all so depressing.
On a brighter note it’s Friday and accoring to statistics lots of people are having sex right now.
I’m done!
Might do it again later.
Your hand doesn’t count Jim
I feel safer already.
Excellent drone work.
Like most chinese made things the batteries will wear out after a few hours and the thing will have fallen apart within a month.
God be with the days when all you had to do was call the A team….
Drone on truck in main picture is wrong one, wings are straight… not delta shaped as the article (or indeed the BBC article) points out
It’s 2013, the wings orientation shouldn’t an issue.
What’s even more amusing about the picture is the truck in camouflage green with the very discreet white-wall tyres. Sure, nobody would notice those out in the countryside…..
They are parade trucks,not actual combat vechicles.
The big question of course is where will this end ? . So soon we can see China taking out dissidents in London or New York ? Iran taking out dissidents in Istanbul ? Or for example in former times The British Government liquidating suspects in Dublin or Dundalk ? With the risk of (Some) collateral damage ? Under which international law will drone attacks operate ?
Padric. You might want to look closer to home. Tibetan dissidents in Napal.
I hardly think the Chinese will be sending columns of flying drones over the skies of London or New York to bomb dissidents especially when a poisoned umbrella or concrete shoes will do the trick just as easily. It’s worked quite well for the Russians
@ Mick : I exaggerate a little about London and New York of course, but there must be a provision for this “relatively new phenomenon” written into the Geneva Convention, or some such international law which forbids the use of drone strikes across national borders aimed at extra-judicial killings. Otherwise this will get completely out of hand.
In Cantonese it’s called Hu Flung Dung.
Does the drone pictured mounted on the truck seem a bit small?
Both the Predator & Reaper drones seem much larger.
I wonder what ordnance it could carry & its range doing so?
I doubt it could reach Japan…… probably scares the sh*t out of Taiwan though.
Drones wouldn’t scare any modern force really. They’re big, slow targets with practically no ability for evasive manoeuvres past a few basic programmed moves and very little in the way of countermeasures. Iran also showed that anyone with even a basic understanding of the technology can essentially shut down a drone.
They’re useful for observing an area with absolutely no air defences and can be of limited combat value. Anything more and you really need to call in a manned, supersonic jet with much more ordnance and countermeasures. Something which almost everyone has at this stage.
I’m a bit skeptical about Iran’s ability to bring down that drone. It’s speculated that it could have been a modern Trojan horse, used to deliver targeted malware. We know the US have targeted Iran with malware before; Stuxnet.
Jason is right Barry.
Predators for example are propellor driven, and travel around 400mph at best.
A 1970s jet or any half decent SAM site can pick them off easily enough.
The MiG fighters employed by Iran are more than a match for any drone currently in service.
You must not know of the incident in question, Ricky. Iran claimed they hacked the drone while in flight and commanded it to land. It was undamaged and they said they plan to reverse engineer it. They did not shoot it down.
I heard of the incident,….. i assumed it was just downed by an iranian missile.
China is a bit behind these other boys “Senior analyst Gen. McInerney warns that US is in comparable danger to pre-WWII period, specifically from Russian and Iranian hegemonies.”
Next they be thinking for themselves
Our experts busies in inventing drones an other war high tech technology but how about this Doomsday Debate: Asteroid Threat Could Divide Society. If our God permit this such as the 1979 vn that have an absolute magnitude of 13.2 and the rolling of the moon will come up all the things that we have in this planet will erases that we may pull back in the old days that uses horse and sword that only only came face to face during war. And no civilian casualties.
have your say