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The decision by the Catalan president in exile, Carles Puigdemont, to leave Berlin and move to Hamburg, for security reasons, has caused inexplicable confusion in some sectors of the German media as to his real whereabouts. The answer is Hamburg, a city close to Schleswig-Holstein, where a German court is to decide whether to grant his extradition or freedom.

News agency DPA and the paper Süddeutsche Zeitung go with the headline "Speculation about Puigdemont's whereabouts". After Puigdemont's lawyer, Jaume Alonso-Cuevillas, announced the president's move earlier this week, German journalist tried to confirm the news with the Schleswig-Holstein court. As is normal in such cases, maximum caution, never saying even one word too many.

The news agency, however, interprets this more dramatically. "The Schleswig-Holstein higher regional court has denied Spanish media reports that Catalan separatist leader Carles Puigdemont has moved from Berlin to Hamburg. 'I cannot confirm Hamburg', said a court spokesperson on Tuesday in Schleswig. She left open the question of whether he is still in Berlin and merely said: 'The justice system knows where Mr Puigdemont is residing - and that's important'. Nor did Puigdemont's media lawyer in Germany, Till Dunckel in Hamburg, want to comment on his current whereabouts'".

Puigdemont, however, is in Hamburg, the German courts' caution explained because the main reason for his move is that in Berlin, a city very popular with tourists, there had already been a number of instances of tension with groups of Spaniards who saw the president in exile. Meanwhile, Hamburg's Catalan Cultural House is organising an event for Catalan festival Sant Joan this Friday on the banks of the Elbe.