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Carles Puigdemont has asked Pedro Sanchez to pardon activists in return for his party’s support to break electoral deadlock
Carles Puigdemont, the Catalan separatist leader who emerged as kingmaker after Spain’s inconclusive July election, has demanded an amnesty for hundreds still facing legal action over the region’s failed 2017 succession bid.
The political exile said the “complete abandonment of judicial proceedings” against Catalan separatists was essential for his JxCat party to back Pedro Sanchez for another term as prime minister.
Mr Puigdemont, 60, headed Catalonia’s regional government in 2017, which made a short-lived declaration of independence after a violence-marred referendum.
He fled Spain to avoid prosecution shortly after the vote was banned by Madrid and now lives in self-imposed exile in Belgium.