Changing flats, leaving the country the same night: Junts offer details of Puigdemont's escape

Junts have given more details of how their leader and presidential candidate, Carles Puigdemont, escaped from Barcelona without being arrested on the day of August 8.

That day, the former Catalan president, who is still wanted by authorities in connection with organizing the 2017 independence referendum, returned to Barcelona for the first time in seven years to give a speech to thousands of supporters in the city center. 

It was the same day as the investiture debate that eventually led to the election of Socialist Salvador Illa as the new president of Catalonia. 

It was expected that Puigdemont would try to enter the parliament, and possibly be arrested there or on the way there. Instead, the pro-independence leader fled the scene and announced days later that he was already back in Belgium, where he has been living for years. Three police officers were arrested on the day of the events for aiding in the politician's escape. 

On Monday, Jordi Turull, general secretary of Puigdemont's political party, Junts, offered details on how the former president evaded authorities and left the country in an interview with Catalan radio station Rac1.

Turull was with Puigdemont for most of the week, before the former president entered Catalonia for the first time in seven years, and accompanied him across the border too.

When they left the Arc de Triomf area, where Puigdemont had given his speech to supporters that morning, they found out that the investiture debate was delayed slightly due to the state of health of a Socialist MP. After that, Puigdemont "decided to go to a flat belonging to a person who had offered it [to Puigdemont] to prepare his speech" that he intended to give in parliament.

After that, the group went to another flat while the investiture debate was ongoing in parliament, where they stayed until the evening before leaving Barcelona at eight.

Turull visited Puigdemont in Waterloo, Belgium, the week prior to the investiture debate, which was held on Thursday, August 8, and they decided to meet close to the border on Tuesday, two days before the debate, to make their way down to Barcelona from there.

The weekend before, the pair "talked a lot about prison," Turull, who spent over three years in prison for his role in the independence push, explained. Puigdemont "was convinced of two things: to come to Catalonia and enter the parliament, and to show that Spain has created an amnesty law that does not give amnesty, that if he entered parliament he would go to prison."

The group arrived in Barcelona early Tuesday evening, driving with sun shades on the car windows "like any mortal."

"We arrive in the evening, we enter from the street, the door of the building opens, elevator, and up. It was not far from the Arc de Triomf," Turull says. "We had dinner with the person whose flat it was, Puigdemont and I."

The pair slept in the flat, and didn't leave for anything the next day, instead spending "all day talking about the next day and reading a lot."

They first discussed the speech to supporters he'd give on arrival, and how Puigdemont would get to the stage. "I told him that he would certainly not be arrested on the podium."

Afterwards, they spoke about how to get to parliament, with driving there by car "a possibility."

"Those nights, Puigdemont did not sleep well. His life could change radically in 24 hours. He was afraid, the fear is always there, they could arrest him at any time."

It was decided that Turull would not join the entourage of Junts officials accompanying Puigdemont to the stage, and that he would instead go to the parliament by car. 

Turull insisted that there was no pact with the Catalan police, the Mossos d'Esquadra. "There was no contact with the police," he said, although three officers were arrested for allegedly assisting in Puigdemont's escape, including one who owned the car that the ex-president left the Arc de Triomf area in. The officers were subsequently suspended without pay. 

Back in the apartment, they discovered that a shutdown operation was in place across Catalonia to find Puigdemont, "as if he were a terrorist." "This is not a deployment like that of a normal investiture debate," Turull insisted. "And you can do two things, let yourself be arrested or confront and stand up to them."

They decided not to go to the parliament around midday, and then went to another flat, a third they had used that week, which was also in Barcelona, "to be further away from the area and because that one seemed to have better conditions."

The following day, the just-departed acting interior minister gave a press conference alongside leadership of the Mossos d'Esquadra police force to explain their side of how the events unfolded. Turull called this press conference "a lack of respect, a lack of professionalism."

He assured that a police officer "must have respect for the institutions and for all the [past] presidents of the Catalan government," and added that the press conference was "inappropriate division."