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Police officers suspended over Puigdemont’s escape from Spain

Three police officers have been suspended over their alleged role in fugitive Catalan leader Carles Puigdemont's escape from Spain after appearing at a Barcelona rally, authorities said Monday.

Published: 26 August 2024 15:41 CEST

Police officers suspended over Puigdemont's escape from Spain

Chief Commissioner of the Catalan regional police forces Mossos d'Esquadra Eduard Sallent addresses a press conference following the arrest of two officers suspected to have helped Catalan leader Carles Puigdemont escape, in Barcelona on August 9, 2024. (Photo by Josep LAGO / AFP)

Puigdemont, who fled abroad after leading a failed 2017 independence bid for Catalonia, defied an arrest warrant to return to Spain to appear at a rally in Barcelona on August 8th near the Catalan regional parliament.

He delivered a brief speech to thousands of people before slipping away, prompting police to set up roadblocks across Spain’s second largest city in a failed bid to find him.

The 61-year-old announced the following day that he had returned to Belgium, where he has lived for most of the bulk of the last seven years.

Three officers from Catalonia’s regional police force were detained on suspicion of helping Puigdemont escape, including one who allegedly owned the car he had used to leave the scene.

They have been suspended while their alleged roles in Puigdemont’s escape are investigated, a spokeswoman for the force said Monday.

“This is a provisional measure,” she added.

Puigdemont led Catalonia’s regional government in 2017, when it pressed ahead with an independence referendum despite a court ban which was followed by a short-lived declaration of independence that sparked Spain’s worst political crisis in decades.

Spain’s parliament passed an amnesty law in May for those involved in the secession bid, but the Supreme Court ruled on July 1 that the measure would not fully apply to Puigdemont.

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Migrant influx fuels debate in Spain over illegal migration

The issue was thrust into the spotlight during a three-day visit by Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez to West Africa which wrapped up Thursday.

The trip was aimed at curbing the record number of unauthorised migrants arriving in the Atlantic archipelago in search of a better life in Europe.

“Spain is committed to safe, orderly and regular migration,” the Socialist premier said soon after he arrived Tuesday in Nouakchott, the capital of Mauritania, in the first stop of his tour which also included Gambia and Senegal.

He called for “circular migration” schemes which allow people to enter Spain legally to work for a limited time in sectors like agriculture, which face labour shortages during harvest time, before returning home.

READ ALSO: Mauritania and Spain pledge cooperation on migration

“Immigration is not a problem, it is a necessity that comes with certain problems,” Sánchez said.

His comments were immediately blasted by Spain’s main opposition Popular Party (PP), which said the statements would encourage more migrants to try to enter the country illegally at a time when the Canary Islands is struggling to cope with an influx of migrants.

Nearly every day, Spain’s coastguard rescues a boat carrying dozens of African migrants towards the seven-island archipelago located off the northwest coast of Africa.

Over 22,000 migrants have landed in the Canary Islands so far this year, compared to just under 10,000 during the same time last year.

The archipelago received a record 39,910 migrants in 2023, a figure it is on track to surpass this year.

‘Irresponsible’

“It is irresponsible to encourage a pull effect in the worst irregular migration crisis,” PP leader Alberto Núñez Feijóo said, accusing Sánchez of going to Africa to “promote Spain as a destination” for migrants.

This is “the opposite” of what other nations in the European Union are doing, he added.

During the final leg of Sánchez’s tour in Dakar, the capital of Senegal, he appeared to take a harder tone by stressing that human trafficking rings that organise boat crossings to Spain sometimes have links to terrorist networks or drug smuggling gangs.

He said security was a “top priority” and said it is “essential to return those who have come to Spain illegally”.

Deportations, however, require the agreement of the country of origin of a migrant, which is not easy to get.

‘Contradictory’

Cristina Monge, a political scientist at the University of Zaragoza, said Sánchez had tried to strike a balance in his comments on the issue in Africa but his message was “a bit contradictory”.

His first speech in Mauritania came “from a European, human rights perspective” but when he talked about the need for deportations the support “he gains on the right, he loses on the left,” she told AFP.

While the PP welcomed Sánchez’s sudden emphasis on security, hard-left party Sumar — the junior coalition partners in his minority government — immediately opposed it.

“Following the same migration recipes called for by the right is a failure and a mistake,” Labour Minister Yolanda Díaz, who founded Sumar, wrote on X.

With the number of crossing attempts expected to increase further in the coming weeks as Atlantic waters become calmer, the controversy is expected to intensify, especially since the PP has hardened its position on the issue in recent years in response to the rise of far-right party Vox which is hostile to immigration.

The Spanish government estimates there are some 200,000 people in Mauritania waiting to go to the Canaries. The bulk of them are from Mali where a military regime is battling an Islamist insurgency.

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