Bittersweet anniversary for Carles Puigdemont, the day he wanted to claim that two years have passed since his brief appearance in the center of Barcelona, and subsequent escape from the police operation set up by the Mossos d’Esquadra to arrest him. The former Catalan president has stated that he remains free, living outside Spain, and that that maneuver served to “expose” the Supreme Court and its will to block the amnesty. “Ridiculous” and “frivolous,” he was accused by Gabriel Rufián, ERC spokesperson in the Congress of Deputies, a characterization that sparked a crossfire of statements between factions of the independence movement. The acrimony between Junts and ERC continues to escalate at the same speed as the voting expectations improve for the far-right independence group represented by Aliança Catalana.
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Carles Puigdemont revealed that that August two years ago he entered Catalonia on the 6th, 48 hours before the investiture session of Salvador Illa as president. Puigdemont published an unpublished photo to illustrate that he was traveling inside a car with Jordi Turull, secretary general of Junts. “Neither in a trunk, nor in disguises, nor camouflaged at night,” the former president clarifies about that return trip. “It was the first time I could do it since October 29, 2017,” he assures, referring to the date he left Spain to avoid being arrested.
“It was important to go out in person to expose what, two years later, is even more scandalous: the rebellious attitude of the Supreme Court, which refused and still refuses to apply the Amnesty Law,” reasons Puigdemont, in a sort of explanation aimed at the doubts raised, even within his own party, by his decision to appear in Barcelona to escape again, defying the Mossos d’Esquadra police force.
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That operation “exposed the weaknesses of the State,” Jordi Turull also stated in a post on social media. Gabriel Rufián responded that it was an “unworthy” action of a president and a party “that gives lessons in patriotism.” Rufián was blunt in his characterization of that action: “You only made a fool of yourselves,” he said.
His post triggered a chain of replies, including one from Jordi Turull himself, who accused the ERC spokesperson in Madrid of being “an immense ocean of notoriety” with the determination to “save Spain.” Gonzalo Boye, Puigdemont’s lawyer, wrote another reaction directed at Rufián, pointing out that “one day it will be known who he works for.”
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