Spanish and German public prosecution services have already started to work on the formalities for the extradition to Spain of exiled Catalan president Carles Puigdemont, according to Spanish authorities, who say they are "working intensely" with their German counterparts to "provide all the documentation and material needed to implement the European arrest warrant".
The German prosecution service has confirmed that Puigdemont has been detained and has been transferred to the prison centre of Neumünster, near Kiel, where his status is "in police custody". However, sources in Puigdemont's legal defence say that an arrest does not necessarily mean an immediate extradition, and ask for him to be transferred to Belgium. On the other hand, the private prosecution carried out by the right-wing political party Vox has already announced that it will request that Puigdemont be sent to a German prison on remand.
According to the usual procedure for European arrest warrants, once the arrest request is received, the German authorities need to review the offences with which Puigdemont is charged - in this case, rebellion and misuse of public funds - in order to see if they have equivalents in the German criminal code. If equivalents exist, the handover to Spain is automatic. In the case of Germany, there is a crime similar to that of rebellion - high treason - punished by prison sentences of up to 10 years - but it would only apply to cases in which violence was used.
Puigdemont had been stopped on Germany's A7 highway travelling south towards Hamburg and on Sunday afternoon was being held in the city of Schuby. The German newspaper Focus states that Spanish intelligence services was tracking Puigdemont and when we left Finland towards Germany they informed the German police. The Catalan leader was detained before noon on Sunday by the German police after he had crossed the border by car from Denmark en route to Belgium, the country in which he currently resides. The detention was in response to the European arrest warrant issued by Spanish Supreme Court judge Pablo Llarena.
Puigdemont had travelled to Finland last Thursday, after spending five days in Switzerland, taking part in conferences and holding meetings with politicians of that country.