Ex-Catalan president Carles Puigdemont detained in Germany

Bloomberg

Police detained former Catalan President Carles Puigdemont as he crossed into Germany from Denmark by car, bringing his eventual return to Spain to face trial a step nearer.
Puigdemont was attempting to return to Belgium after a visit to Finland, his lawyer Jaume Alonso-Cuevillas said by phone on Sunday. A spokesman for the police in Germany’s northern state of Schleswig-Holstein also confirmed he was being held.
A Spanish Supreme Court judge had reactivated an arrest warrant for Puigdemont, who fled to Belgium in October after his attempt to declare independence from Spain led Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy to sack the Catalan government. Puigdemont and many of his inner circle from the separatist leadership face charges of rebellion for holding an illegal referendum and seeking to split from Spain.
“The ball is now in the court of the German judicial authorities,”Argelia Queralt, a professor of constitutional law at Barcelona University, said by phone. “I don’t think the Germans will stand for any nonsense and will seek to apply the rules.”
German police acting on the warrant issued by Spain stopped Puigdemont on the A7 highway at 11:19 a.m., and he’s currently in custody, Uwe Keller, the police spokesman, said by phone.

‘Coup-Monger’
Albert Rivera, the head of Ciudadanos, a pro-Spain party which won the most votes in Catalan elections in December, welcomed Puigdemont’s detention. “The flight of the coup-monger Puigdemont is over,” he said in a verified tweet. “Justice is doing its work.”
The prospect of Puigdemont’s eventual return to face Spanish justice will do nothing to heal the divisions opened up in Catalan society by the independence campaign, said Queralt. Puigdemont had been living freely in Belgium and making trips around Europe to press the case for Catalan independence by styling himself as the region’s authentic leader.
“The wounds are now deeper because of the tough legal response,” she said. “They will now take longer to heal.”
Rajoy used emergency powers under the Spanish constitution to eject Puigdemont and his government from office in October. Elections held in the region in December produced a slim majority for the separatist bloc but Puigdemont was unable to return to try to form a government because he faced arrest if he set foot back in Spain.
“Spain does not guarantee a fair trial, only revenge and repression,” Elsa Artadi, the spokeswoman for Puigdemont’s Junts per Catalunya group,
said in a message retweeted by the pro-secession coalition.