The second option of the Spanish Supreme Court judge Pablo Llarena for the extradition of Catalan president Carles Puigdemont is also backed by a weak case, according to Der Spiegel, Germany's largest magazine. This remaining charge, of misappropriation of public funds in connection with the Catalan independence referendum on October 1st last year, is still under consideration by the German court in Schleswig-Holstein, after the court ruled out extradition on the charge of rebellion last Friday.
According to Spiegel, the European arrest warrant that judge Llarena presented "does not contain even a word" on the specific involvement of Puigdemont in this supposed offence. And it warns that this "will not be enough for the Schleswig high court". "Even though the extradition for this accusation was not initially able to be discarded, it is necessary to clarify the real circumstances and obtain more information", adds the magazine.
The magazine concludes that either judge Llarena needs to presents clarifications, or there will be no extradition of Puigdemont.
According to Spiegel, there is a second added problem. Although Spain's Civil Guard did make a specific accusation on the spending of funds on the referendum in late February, it was not Puigdemont but the minister Jordi Turull, who was accused of having spent 1.4 million euros in the referendum, of a total of 1.6 million. "In the worst case, the misappropriation carried out by Puigdemont would be less than 250,000 euros", according to the magazine.
