Puigdemont orders report to compare German and Spanish legal rulings on referendum case

The former Catalan president, Carles Puigdemont, requested an "independent report" to compare the legal decisions by German and Spanish courts on the Catalan referendum case.

He announced it on Monday outside Neumünster prison, in Germany, which he visited exactly one year after being incarcerated there for 12 days starting on March 25, 2019.

Puigdemont's lawyer, Gonzalo Boye, said they had requested the paper from a team led by Florian Jessberger in the University of Berlin and they believe it will be ready "some months after" the Spanish Supreme Court releases the verdict of the ongoing trial against 12 leaders of the independence bid.  

According to Boye, the paper might be important in the event the judicial case is taken to other judicial bodies.

"Double standards"

Related to this report, Puigdemont said that "there are double standards in Europe."

"I am a free European citizen, I am a free man, with freedom of expression and freedom of movement, but my colleagues and friends are in jail for more than a year and a half facing the worst charge in Spain's penal code, rebellion," he added.