Carles Puigdemont has once again appeared on the scene just a few minutes after the new President of the Generalitat, Salvador Illa, took office in an event attended by several Catalonia government councillors. The moral leader of Junts has reappeared in a video posted on his social networks, with the same background as the recording he released on Wednesday and where he says he is in Waterloo without giving further details.
The fugitive briefly recounts what happened on Thursday under the Arc de Triomphe in Barcelona, when he disappeared in front of thousands of people and 602 Mossos agents deployed. Specifically, he defines his second escape as "an extraction in a context of brutal repression" and challenges Justice again.
"I wanted to enter the Parliament of Catalonia, but the Minister for Home Affairs denied me", he says about the Mossos d'Esquadra (the police of Catalonia) operation to arrest him as there was a national arrest warrant against him.
"I have never wanted to surrender to a judicial authority that is not competent to pursue us and has no interest in delivering justice, but rather aims to make politics," Puigdemont warns, repeating the same idea he already mentioned in the message from last night, that he never contemplated being arrested under any circumstances.
"I knew what I was risking, I tried what seemed impossible, and in case of failure, there would have been enormous costs: an extraction in a context of brutal repression and siege," he describes about the disappearance and subsequent escape he carried out on Thursday. "Being able to return to my place first and then to my Belgian residence in Waterloo became the goal," he recounts without going into further details.
In fact, in the image, only he appears, in a very close shot and against a white background, with the flags of Catalonia and Europe in the background. A scenery identical to the one in the recording from Wednesday, where he even wears the same tie and probably jacket.
Puigdemont uses this new message to challenge Justice and the State again: "It is necessary to internationally denounce a Spanish State that does not behave democratically when it allows Supreme Court judges to mock the laws approved by its parliament."
In the recording, the Junts leader once again harshly criticizes ERC (Catalan pro-independence political party) for the Mossos operation -"what I could not imagine is the enthusiastic collaboration of a Catalan Government whose time in judicial rebellion had ended"- and issues a new challenge: "The process of independence is not over."