Spain's Public Prosecutor is in favour of applying for the extradition of Catalan president Carles Puigdemont from Belgium only for the crimes of rebellion or sedition, when the Supreme Court decides on his final indictment, expected this Spring.
The aim is to avoid having Belgium extradite Puigdemont for lesser crimes likes disobedience, malfeasance or misuse of public funds, and not for rebellion or sedition, as in that case the Supreme Court could only try him for those lesser crimes, which would be "inacceptable" for prosecutors, sources say.
Prosecutors defend limiting the request to the most serious crimes, even if that involves the risk that, as happened last time, there could arise problems with the extradition request, which could lead to the trial having to be held without the president present.
The application for the new arrest warrant would be made when the judge in the Supreme Court investigation against the independence process, Pablo Llarena, decides about the indictment of the suspects, which will foreseeably take place in March or April.
Prosecutors had already modified their request in January when Puigdemont travelled to Denmark, limiting it solely to the crimes of "rebellion and/or sedition", with the aim of avoiding him being immune to those charges if he was extradited. Nevertheless, the judge refused to issue a European Arrest Warrant at that time saying that it would have given Puigdemont an opportunity to delegate his vote in the Parliament.
They still support the same idea, although the judge could still decide to issue a warrant for all the charges, or only a different subset of the allegations, or just reactivate the warrant he had originally issued last year but later withdrew.
If Puigdemont is in Belgium when any eventual warrant is issued, the country could arrest the president over only some of the charges, as, for example, rebellion is not recognised in the Belgian Penal Code in the same terms as in Spanish legislation. If Belgium were not to hand him over to Spain for rebellion or sedition, Spanish justice could not try him for those crimes and couldn't suspend him in his role through normal criminal law, as he wouldn't be held in preventive detention, which is one of the requirements.
Article 384 bis of the Law of Criminal Procedure says that given "a firm action of processing and dictated preventive detention for a crime committed by a person belonging to or related with an armed group or individual terrorists or rebels, a suspect holding a public role would be automatically suspended from exercising the same as long as custody continues".