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Lawyer: Catalonia’s Puigdemont Unlikely to Return to Spain

Carles Puigdemont, before his press conference at the Press Club in Brussels. Nicolas Maeterlinck/AFP
Carles Puigdemont, before his press conference at the Press Club in Brussels. Nicolas Maeterlinck/AFP
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Lawyer: Catalonia’s Puigdemont Unlikely to Return to Spain

Carles Puigdemont, before his press conference at the Press Club in Brussels. Nicolas Maeterlinck/AFP
Carles Puigdemont, before his press conference at the Press Club in Brussels. Nicolas Maeterlinck/AFP

Catalonia's dismissed leader Carles Puigdemont will not return to Spain as there is a "good chance that he would be detained", one of his lawyers has said.

Speaking to Dutch public newscaster NOS late Tuesday, Belgian lawyer Paul Bekaert said "as far as he told me that's not going to happen" when asked if his client would go back to Spain.

"That's because we are awaiting further reactions from the Spanish authorities to see what's going to happen," Bekaert said, speaking by phone to the Nieuwsuur actuality program.

The lawyer also told the Associated Press on Wednesday that Puigdemont "is not going to Madrid and I suggested that they question him here in Belgium. It is possible."

Puigdemont together with 13 other former members of his administration has been summoned by Madrid’s National Audience, which deals with major criminal cases.

He and his government were sacked on Friday by Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy hours after passing a unilateral declaration of independence from Spain through the regional parliament, a vote boycotted by the opposition and considered illegal by Spanish courts.

On Monday, Spain's chief prosecutor said he was seeking charges of rebellion -- punishable by up to 30 years behind bars -- sedition and misuse of public funds.

But the 54-year-old Puigdemont is in Brussels, where he surfaced after reportedly driving to Marseille in France and taking a plane to the Belgian capital.

At a packed and chaotic news conference Tuesday, Puigdemont said he was in Brussels "for safety purposes and freedom" and to "explain the Catalan problem in the institutional heart of Europe".

He denied that he intended to claim asylum but said he and several other former ministers who traveled with him would return only if they have guarantees that legal proceedings would be impartial.

Bekaert told NOS he believed "there is a good chance that Puigdemont will be detained" should he return to Spain.

Asked whether Puigdemont would face a fair trial in Spain, the lawyer said "it would be premature (to say), but that would certainly be an argument we would use at an eventual extradition request".

Attention in the crisis over Catalonia is now turning to the December election, called by Rajoy when Madrid took over control of the autonomous region.

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Typhoon Gaemi Weakens to Tropical Storm as It Moves Inland Carrying Rain toward Central China

In this photo released by the Taiwan Ministry of National Defense, Taiwanese soldiers clear debris in the aftermath of Typhoon Gaemi in Kaohsiung county in southwestern Taiwan, Friday, July 26, 2024. (Taiwan Ministry of National Defense via AP)
In this photo released by the Taiwan Ministry of National Defense, Taiwanese soldiers clear debris in the aftermath of Typhoon Gaemi in Kaohsiung county in southwestern Taiwan, Friday, July 26, 2024. (Taiwan Ministry of National Defense via AP)
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Typhoon Gaemi Weakens to Tropical Storm as It Moves Inland Carrying Rain toward Central China

In this photo released by the Taiwan Ministry of National Defense, Taiwanese soldiers clear debris in the aftermath of Typhoon Gaemi in Kaohsiung county in southwestern Taiwan, Friday, July 26, 2024. (Taiwan Ministry of National Defense via AP)
In this photo released by the Taiwan Ministry of National Defense, Taiwanese soldiers clear debris in the aftermath of Typhoon Gaemi in Kaohsiung county in southwestern Taiwan, Friday, July 26, 2024. (Taiwan Ministry of National Defense via AP)

Tropical storm Gaemi brought rain to central China on Saturday as it moved inland after making landfall at typhoon strength on the country's east coast Thursday night.

The storm felled trees, flooded streets and damaged crops in China but there were no reports of casualties or major damage. Eight people died in Taiwan, which Gaemi crossed at typhoon strength before heading over open waters to China.

The worst loss of life, however, was in a country that Gaemi earlier passed by but didn't strike directly: the Philippines. A steadily climbing death toll has reached 34, authorities there said Friday. The typhoon exacerbated seasonal monsoon rains in the Southeast Asian country, causing landslides and severe flooding that stranded people on rooftops as waters rose around them.

China Gaemi weakened to a tropical storm since coming ashore Thursday evening in coastal Fujian province, but it is still expected to bring heavy rains in the coming days as it moves northwest to Jiangxi, Hubei and Henan provinces.

About 85 hectares (210 acres) of crops were damaged in Fujian province and economic losses were estimated at 11.5 million yuan ($1.6 million), according to Chinese media reports. More than 290,000 people were relocated because of the storm.

Elsewhere in China, several days of heavy rains this week in Gansu province left one dead and three missing in the country's northwest, the official Xinhua News Agency said.

Taiwan Residents and business owners swept out mud and mopped up water Friday after serious flooding that sent cars and scooters floating down streets in parts of southern and central Taiwan. Some towns remained inundated with waist-deep water.

Eight people died, several of them struck by falling trees and one by a landslide hitting their house. More than 850 people were injured and one person was missing, the emergency operations center said.

Visiting hard-hit Kaohsiung in the south Friday, President Lai Ching-te commended the city's efforts to improve flood control since a 2009 typhoon that brought a similar amount of rain and killed 681 people, Taiwan's Central News Agency reported.

Lai announced that cash payments of $20,000 New Taiwan Dollars ($610) would be given to households in severely flooded areas.

A cargo ship sank off the coast near Kaohsiung Harbor during the typhoon, and the captain's body was later pulled from the water, the Central News Agency said. A handful of other ships were beached by the storm.

Philippines At least 34 people died in the Philippines, mostly because of flooding and landslides triggered by days of monsoon rains that intensified when the typhoon — called Carina in the Philippines — passed by the archipelago’s east coast.

The victims included 11 people in the Manila metro area, where widespread flooding trapped people on the roofs and upper floors of their houses, police said. Some drowned or were electrocuted in their flooded communities.

Earlier in the week, Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. ordered authorities to speed up efforts in delivering food and other aid to isolated rural villages, saying people may not have eaten for days.

The bodies of a pregnant woman and three children were dug out Wednesday after a landslide buried a shanty in the rural mountainside town of Agoncillo in Batangas province.