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President Carles Puigdemont is no longer in Finland. In fact, he left the country on Friday, thus outwitting Spain's effort to detain him by, for the second time, activating a European arrest warrant.

Finnish MP Mikko Kärnä, who had invited him to visit the country, has confirmed this. In a press release he explained that Carles Puigdemont left on Friday evening, shortly after learning that Spanish judge Pablo Llarena had reactivated the arrest warrant against him.

Until Saturday afternoon, Finnish police were looking for him all over the country, especially in the capital Helsinki and its airport, where the president was due to take a direct flight to Brussels at 3:40pm. Police sources explained that they hadn't located him in order to arrest him and bring him before a judge, although the Finnish interior ministry had already discarded the possibility that in the end they would extradite him.

Kärnä explained that the president had left Finland - specifically, on Friday evening to travel to Belgium by unknown means. This does not mean, though, that Puigdemont is in Brussels. His current location is unknown.

Meanwhile, Belgium authorities have already received the European arrest warrant against Puigdemont. Sources from the public prosecutors' office in Brussels have confirmed that they have received the warrant asking for the exiled Catalan president to be found and extradited. However, they admit that at the moment they do not know where the JxCat leader is.