Belgian court delays decision on extraditing ex-Catalan leader Puigdemont till February

A Belgian court on Monday postponed former Catalan leader Carles Puigdemont’s extradition hearing for at least two months.

The court in Brussels decided that a new hearing on whether to extradite the politician to Spain would take place on February 3, once the European Court of Justice has ruled on whether Puigdemont should be granted immunity after being elected as an EU lawmaker.

“It’s now first up to the European court in Luxembourg to clarify all the issues concerning the immunity questions because of the election of the European Parliament,” AP quoted his lawyer, Simon Bekaert, as saying after Monday’s hearing.

Puigdemont and a number of his associates fled to Belgium in October 2017, after the unsuccessful secessionist push he led and the holding of an independence referendum that the central government in Madrid said was illegal.