Lawyer Gonzalo Boye has been clear about it for some time. Today, he said that his feeling is that Puigdemont will return to Belgium and not Spain because Germany won't accept Spain's extradition request. In fact, yesterday the German judges had refused to imprison him again and to consider the charge of rebellion. Earlier, the lawyer had joked that president Carles Puigdemont's defence team in Germany "has been eating popcorn for two months" because it "hasn't had to do anything", since the Spanish justice system "has been scoring own goals since the beginning" .
The lawyer made the comments this morning on the radio program El matí de Catalunya Ràdio, justifying his claim with the argument "it's not a question of feelings", rather that, "in democratic countries, justice is predictable". He said that the crimes of rebellion and sedition "don't exist" in the case and that, as for misuse of public funds, even the treasury minister, Cristóbal Montoro, himself "says it didn't happen", whilst the Civil Guard and Spanish National Police "have also confirmed that they haven't found evidence confirming it".
Not only that. He also said that "the ruling, with respect to misuse of public funds, says that there are contradictory versions" and, as such, believes that "we're attributing criminal responsibility to something of political nature and about a misuse of public funds which didn't take place". The expectation is that it will all be decided during the second half of June, after prosecutors present their definitive filing, Puigdemont's legal team contest it, the hearing is held and the ruling is drafted.
Charging Rajoy?
Repeating that "these facts aren't criminal in Germany because it's a democracy", the lawyer for the president in exile expressed regret that Supreme Court judge Pablo Llarena "is generalising towards Puigdemont's government the violence which some few demonstrators might or not have employed and attributing them with being criminal", at the same time as suggesting that "in the democratic countries it's very difficult to understand [that] as a concept of violence".
According to Boye, following the criteria Spanish justice hopes to apply to the member of the Catalan government and other pro-independence leaders, "Mr Rajoy should also be charged for the violence used by the Civil Guard and Spanish National Police", but that "it doesn't occur to anyone to push upwards [eg: on leaders] something which could be individual, if it has taken place".
For Puigdemont's lawyer, the positive of all this is that "what they're doing abroad is moving towards overturning what they're doing in the Spanish state". He expressed confidence that "there will be no conflicting decisions between some countries of the European Union and other", except when it comes to Spain, who he urged to "decide if it wants to continue within the EU or become an isolated country like Albania".