Former Catalan president and separatist leader Carles Puigdemont staged a scene worthy of one of the best performances by Hungarian-American escape artist Harry Houdini, after giving a speech in Barcelona on Thursday (8 Aug), where he was actively sought by Spanish police, slipped away again.

Minutes before the inauguration ceremony of the new Catalan president, Socialist Salvador Illa (PSC/PSOE), Puigdemont, leader of the right-wing separatist Together for Catalonia (JxCat) party, managed to deliver a brief speech to around 3,500 supporters, at the symbolic site for separatists in the Catalan capital, the Arc de Triomf (triumphal arch).

No one can explain how he managed to get there without being spotted or apprehended by the Catalan regional police (Mossos d’ Esquadra), unless there was a “tacit pact” to let him speak, as has been speculated in the Spanish media.

“I don’t know when we’ll see each other again. But when we see each other again, we can shout together the cry with which I will now end: Long live free Catalonia,” Puigdemont stated.

After his speech, he was last seen heading through the crowd toward the regional parliament building, but has since “disappeared”.

Meanwhile, Catalan police on Thursday arrested an officer accused of helping Puigdemont to flee in a car, after he addressed the JxCat rally, Euractiv´s partner EFE reported.

The Mossos d’Esquadra has now launched Operation ‘Jaula’ (Spanish for cage) to track down the separatist former leader, with roadblocks set up around the city.

Embarrassingly for the Spanish authorities, the separatist leader was able to walk around Barcelona’s city center freely like a tourist, despite being under a national arrest warrant.

Though charges of treason and terrorism against him were dropped as part of the highly controversial amnesty deal with the government of Spanish Prime Minister, Pedro Sánchez (PSOE/S&D) and the left-wing platform Sumar, Puigdemont still faces charges of embezzling public funds and illicit enrichment, relating to the organisation of the illegal independence referendum held on 1 October 2017.

The Spanish Supreme Court ruled in July that the crime of embezzlement was not covered by the amnesty law, which shields pro-independence leaders from prosecution for their roles in the secession attempt of that year.

However Puigdemont’s arrest could have threaten the stability of Sanchez’s government.

The stability of the PSOE-Sumar coalition government depends on the support of the seven deputies of JxCat and the seven deputies of the pro-independence left-wing rival, Republican Left of Catalonia (ERC), in the national parliament.

A new “humiliation” for Spanish democracy

While the coalition government or the PSOE did not comment on Puigdemont’s return, the leader of Spain’s main opposition People’s Party (Partido Popular, PP/EPP), Alberto Nuñez Feijóo, slammed the scenes in Barcelona as an “unbearable humiliation.”

“It is painful to watch this madness live, for which Pedro Sanchez is primarily responsible. It is unforgivable to damage Spain’s image like this,” said Feijoo on X.

The Secretary General Ingacio Garriga of the far-right VOX party, the third largest force in the Spanish parliament, accused Sánchez of allowing Spain to be “humiliated” by tolerating a “rally” by Puigdemont just a few meters from the Catalonian parliament, without having been arrested.

“We have had to witness an absurdity, a democratic anomaly, to see a criminal, a fugitive from justice, who has been able to hold a rally a few meters from parliament, before the passivity of the Government of the nation, which has shown once again that it drags the pride of a homeland for a personal interest,” said Garriga.

But, like Houdini, who was christened Harry ‘Handcuff’, everything indicated this Thursday afternoon that Puigdemont had managed to “escape” from the police, after his fleeting appearance in Barcelona, once again mocking justice.

This is the second time that the JxCat leader managed to evade police and justice.

On 30 October 2017, shortly after the secessionist attempt in Catalonia, the separatist leader fled Spain at night, hiding in the boot of a car, thanks to the help of a small group of regional police officers sympathetic to the pro-independence cause.

Read more with Euractiv

Puigdemont returns to Spain as a ‘free man’, condemning his ‘repression’

Former Catalan president Carles Puigdemont returned to Spain from southern France, and before some 3.500 separatist supporters gathered in Barcelona on Thursday lamented the “repression” of which he said he had been a victim since 2017, while escaping the the police force set up to capture him.