Puigdemont's decision to go to Belgium was 'intelligent,' says his lawyer

The Belgian lawyer of former president Carles Puigdemont denies that the leader of Junts per Catalunya (JxCat) was a "coward" with his decision to go into exile immediately following the October 27 declaration of independence last year.

In an interview with the Catalan News Agency (ACN), Paul Bekaert insists that Puigdemont's decision to go to Belgium was "intelligent" and suggests that some of the political leaders who decided to stay in Catalonia "did not realize the danger of going to prison for so long."

"I don't think those now in jail knew they would spend so long there, perhaps if they had known they too would have gone to Belgium or Switzerland," says Bekaert, who admits he advised Puigdemont not to go to Finland, the trip that ended with his arrest in Germany.

Bekaert, a renowned Flemish lawyer, said he had followed the events in Catalonia and had seen the unilateral referendum and Parliament's declaration of independence on television. The lawyer knew perfectly well who Carles Puigdemont was.

That's why he says that he did not hesitate for a moment in representing Puigdemont when a few days after the declaration, the then Catalan president showed up at his office in Tielt (Flanders), asking if he would become his defense lawyer.

"He made a good impression on me and seemed like a genuine statesman, who was calm and rational," Bekaert recalls during the interview with ACN, a year since Puigdemont and some of his former ministers went into exile in Belgium.

"I was sure the European arrest warrant was an abuse of the law"

Until Puigdemont arrived in Belgium, Bekaert says, he had no "direct" or "indirect" contact with either him or his team. "There had been no contact before he arrived, I had always been in touch with Basques but not Catalans [...] it was he who searched me out," he adds.

Aware of the situation in Catalonia, Bekaert says he readily accepted representing Puigdemont. "I was sure the European arrest warrant was not correct and that it was an abuse of the law and that Belgian courts would not accept it," he says.

Asked about what he thought about Puigdemont's decision to come to Belgium, the lawyer says it is "a decision for each person," but he also thinks that it was the right choice. "You cannot do politics from prison, it's impossible, you have to be free to keep doing it," he says.

"I advised him not to go to Finland"

After the Spanish judiciary withdrew the first arrest warrant against Puigdemont, and the bail conditions were removed, the JxCat leader went to Finland against his lawyer's advice, but with another warrant reactivated in March, the former president was detained on his return by German police.