Italian judge suspends Puigdemont’s extradition process pending EU court decision

The court in Sassari, Sardinia, has suspended Carles Puigdemont’s extradition procedure. In the hearing held before the Court of Appeals in Sassari on the Italian island of Sardinia on Monday, attorneys provisionally rejected going ahead with the case that opened when the exiled Catalan president was arrested in September when he first traveled to the island. Puigdemont came out of the court as a free man shortly after 3PM:

The prosecutor believes his extradition process cannot go ahead until the magistrates in Luxembourg decide whether the removal of his immunity was done lawfully – and the court in Sassari accepted this stance, so the case is now in stand by waiting for the EU court ruling. After Puigdemont had his immunity as a Member of the European Parliament (MEP) lifted in March 2021, his defense appealed against the decision made by a majority of the parliament members before the EU court.

Meanwhile and in spite of repeated denials by various countries, the Spanish Supreme Court has urged the arrest of the two pro-independence MEPs in exile who are accompanying Carles Puigdemont to his hearing before the court of appeal in Sassari on the Italian island of Sardinia. Toni Comín and Clara Ponsatí, who were Catalan ministers during the peak of the independence crisis in 2017, also went into exile after the declaration of independence and have been wanted by Spain ever since.