"Today is a day to call more strongly than ever for the release of the political prisoners". That was Carles Puigdemont's reaction to judge Pablo Llarena withdrawing the arrest warrants against him and five fellow pro-independence politicians. "Withdrawing the European Arrest Warrants is the demonstration of the immense weakness of the legal case," he said.
Avui és un dia per reclamar amb més força que mai la llibertat dels presos i preses polítics. Retirar les OEDE és la demostració de la feblesa immensa de la causa judicial. Revocar la presó preventiva seria la demostració que la justícia espanyola comença a actuar com l'europea.
— Carles Puigdemont (@KRLS) 19 de julio de 2018
"Revoking the pretrial detention [without bail of the pro-independence leaders in Spain] would be the demonstration that the Spanish justice system is starting to act like the European [justice system]", he added in a tweet.
Meanwhile, the president's lawyer in Belgium, Paul Bekaert, has said that the president in exile will now return to that country "next week", confirming what sources close to the president had told Catalan news agency ACN. "I've just talked with him by phone and he's told me he'll be returning to Brussels, to Waterloo, next week," said the lawyer.