Belgian court rejects Spain’s demand to have ex-Catalan minister extradited

A court in Belgium on Friday rejected Spain’s demand to have a former high-ranking politician from the region of Catalonia extradited. The Brussels prosecutor’s office said the court had decided not to enforce the European arrest warrant for former Catalan Culture Minister Lluis Puig on the grounds that “the Spanish authorities who issued the warrant are not competent to do so,” AP reports.

Puig’s lawyers had argued that Spain’s Supreme Court does not have the jurisdiction to judge him and that only a Catalan court is competent to do so.

The move is seen as yet another setback for Madrid’s efforts to try several officials in exile over their alleged roles in an independence referendum that Spain sees as illegal.

Puig has been living in exile in Belgium since he, former Catalan President Carles Puigdemont, and a number of their associates fled to Belgium in October 2017, fearing arrest over the holding of an independence referendum that the Spanish government had banned.