Llarena throws in the towel

Supreme Court judge Pablo Llarena yesterday dropped extradition proceedings against Carles Puigdemont, in Germany, his former ministers Clara Ponsatí (Scotland), Lluís Puig, Meritxell Serret and Antoni Comín (Brussels), and ERC leader Marta Rovira (Switzerland).

What led to Llarena withdrawing the arrest warrants he had issued against the exiled officials was the decision by the Schleswig-Holstein court not to extradite Puigdemont for rebellion, and only for misuse of public funds, meaning he could not be tried in Spain for the more serious offence.

Yet, Llarena kept the arrest warrants in Spain for all the exiled officials, preventing them from returning home without risking arrest and being tried for rebellion along with nine political leaders in pretrial detention. In withdrawing the warrants, Llarena accused the German court of a “lack of commitment.”

Despite Puigdemont being the main person responsible for the independence bid in Llarena’s eyes, the trial will go ahead in the autumn with the nine jailed political leaders in the dock. As for the Spanish prime minister Pedro Sánchez, he said the “important thing is that they be tried before Spanish courts.”

The German court’s decision is not the only setback for Llarena. First the former Catalan president and some of his ministers fled to Brussels. A month after Puigdemont was arrested in Germany in March, the court rejected extraditing him for rebellion, only days after Belgium ruled out extraditing Comín, Serret and Puig. Meanwhile, Switzerland declared it would not extradite Rovira for “political offences”. Only the proceedings in Scotland against Ponsatí remained, but that is now irrelevant as all of the exiled officials have the freedom to move anywhere in Europe, other than in Spain.