Former Catalan separatist leader Carles Puigdemont returned to Spain after seven years of self-imposed exile, defying a pending arrest warrant and igniting a police manhunt.
Pictures and video footage showed the separatist politician, who fled Spain after embarking on a failed quest for Catalan independence in 2017, addressing a crowd of supporters in Barcelona.
"They were thinking they would celebrate my arrest … But they are wrong," he told his followers according to a CNBC translation, rattling his fist in the air. "It was not, it is not, and it will never be a crime to have a referendum."
He appeared to vanish in the crowd after the speech, despite a heavy police presence.
Barcelona's authorities rapidly launched "Operation Cage," setting up roadblocks within and just outside of Barcelona in an attempt to locate Puigdemont's vehicle.
In a series of CNBC-translated updates on the X social media platform, Puigdemont appeared to taunt his pursuers, asking, "Am I inside the walls of Parliament?" and mocking media reports over the progress of Operation Cage, noting that "the ridiculousness is absolute."
CNBC has contacted Spain's Interior Ministry over whether Puigdemont has been detained.
A Catalan Interior Ministry spokesperson confirmed to Reuters that the separatist politician has yet to be captured.
Widely perceived as a symbol of the Catalonian separatist struggle against Spanish national control, the 61-year-old Puigdemont is sought on charges of embezzlement, which he denies.
Puigdemont's chaotic return on Thursday takes the shine off a debate for the investiture of Spain's former health minister and socialist candidate Salvador Illa as Catalonia's new president. Illa's platform won the largest share of the vote in the Catalan elections of May, dethroning Puigdemont's hardline separatist Junts per Catalunya party.
Parliament was able to begin its Thursday session despite the ongoing manhunt.
Without directly naming Illa, Puigdemont appeared to ridicule him in a CNBC-translated social media update, "Imagine … the day they make you president, a pirate running in a car steals all your limelight."
His reappearance also stoked anger in other parts of Spain's political sphere. "We are living through a real embarrassment and an international shame promoted and allowed by the Government of the nation," said Ignacio Garriga — Secretary-General of the far-right Vox party — of Puidgemont's reappearance, according to a CNBC translation. "We must find those responsible."
Puigdemont is at once a boon and a wild card for the Socialist administration of Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez, which depends on the votes of the Junts party to achieve parliamentary majority and has sought to revitalize relations with Catalonia. Sanchez only returned to his post late last year after two failed attempts by conservative rival Alberto Nunez Feijoo to rally parliamentary endorsement and form a government.
Puigdemont's support is seen as likely to come with a steep price tag. A contentious amnesty Bill, that was penned by the Socialist government and could pardon participants in the Catalan independence movement, narrowly passed in late May. A Supreme Court decision excluded Puigdemont from receiving amnesty under the law, with a public prosecutor now filing an appeal against the motion, according to local media.
