March 25, 2018: Carles Puigdemont (winner of 2015 + 2017 Catalan elections and first choice presidential candidate for pro-independence Catalonia), was arrested in Germany while driving from Finland to Belgium. Hearing the news, I instantly thought: have they been spying on him?

On his 1,000+ km journey from Helsinki via Sweden and Denmark, he was arrested by German highway police just after crossing the Danish border in the "Village in the Woods" aka Schuby / Skovby on Bundesautobahn 7. They weren't giving him a speeding ticket. Somehow they knew exactly where to find him.

Turned to Catalan TV and imagine my shock when literally seconds later, the broadcast showed a tweet from Spain's National Police boasting about a covert operation with Spanish intelligence to get Puigdemont:

"Gracias a una operación coordinada de los agentes de Información de @policia y el CNI, Puigdemont ha sido detenido en Alemania." https://twitter.com/policia/status/977903364641050625

Puigdemont has only ever championed peaceful and democratic methods for the independence movement. How many of the dangerous and violent criminals running around Europe with outstanding arrest warrants are nabbed through expensive covert multinational intelligence operations?

But here's the thing: when Finland received the arrest warrant from Spain a couple of days ago--in Castellano--they threw it back at Spain saying: In English!!! We want it in English!! https://www.vilaweb.cat/noticies/espanya-envia-leuroordre-en-castella-i-finlandia-respon-que-ho-faci-en-angles/

(NOTE: corporate media left out that bit, preferring to report he "slipped out" of Finland).

No, he did not slip out of Finland, he left as planned and Spanish intelligence knew it. They didn't really want him arrested in Finland anyway as it was extremely unlikely Finland would have delivered him to Spain.

Meanwhile, Puigdemont's lawyer had publicly stated that he would cooperate fully with the Belgian courts on his return to Belgium. So why the need for an expensive, elaborate covert intelligence operation involving the Germans?

Because they wanted to arrest him in Germany. Not in Finland, Sweden, or Denmark or Belgium. No, they needed him in Germany for some reason.

How have Germans reacted?

"Deutschland hat seinen ersten politischen Gefangenen"

"Germany has its first political prisoners!" says the headline from SDZ.

"Diesen Haftbefehl vollstreckten nun die norddeutschen Autobahnpolizisten. Wer in Kiel oder Berlin hat dies angeordnet? Schlau war das nicht."

"This arrest warrant was executed by the North German highway police. Who in Kiel or Berlin ordered this? Genius. NOT." (loosely translated).

http://www.sueddeutsche.de/politik/verhaftung-von-carles-puigdemont-deutschland-hat-seinen-ersten-politischen-gefangenen-1.3920198

Indeed that is the million dollar question: So Mr. Mariano Rajoy, who did you contact in Berlin to order Puigdemont's arrest? And if Belgium, Finland and Switzerland don't consider him a dangerous criminal, why should Germany?

BACKGROUND:
Remember: Spain had already issued a European arrest warrant last November for Puigdemont who was in exile in Belgium. The Spanish government had gone berserk after the declaration of independence of Catalonia in October 2017 and PUBLICLY ANNOUNCED that they would be jailing most of the elected Catalan leadership. That's how "rule of law" works in Spain; courts just follow the government's orders with no proper hearings but rather "pre-trial detention" was decreed for the democratically elected leadership.

So it was planned that six Catalan Ministers would go to Belgium to publicize the cause internationally (they did not "flee" as corporate media would like to you believe, it was a deliberate strategy). In fact one of the Ministers (Joachim Forn) returned to Spain knowing he would be arrested. But as it became clear that Belgium considered the warrant to be based on false, trumped up political charges and would not be handing them over to Spain, the extradition request and European arrest warrant was quietly withdrawn by Spanish judge Pablo LLarena on December 5, 2017.

Much to the Spanish government's dismay, pro-independence parties AGAIN won the December 21, 2017 elections called by Rajoy. Puigdemont was the preferred Presidential candidate but stepped aside as the courts would not allow his investiture from Belgium and threatened to arrest him if he returned. Catch 22 or what?

So Jordi Sanchez was nominated as a second choice but the courts said NO because he was already in jail. When there was a chance choice #3 (Jordi Turull) might be invested as President in a second round of voting on March 24, the Courts sent him to jail too on March 23, along with any other potential choices (Raul Romeva) and re-issued arrest warrants for the remaining ministers in exile.

(All in all, 28 people are now arrested or threatened with arrest as political prisoners, including most of the democratically elected Catalan leaders who WON the December 2017 election called by Rajoy).

Spain is worried that in Belgium they don't have kangaroo courts and that it wouldn't do much good to send another arrest warrant to Belgium. And Sweden, Denmark, Finland....how obedient would their courts be and how much support could Rajoy count on? (Yes, this is the same Mariano Rajoy whose name shows up in a list of bribes paid and whose People's Party (PP) has been described in an official parliamentary hearing as a criminal organization by Spain's financial police. However Rajoy has been stalling the Gurtel and Barcenas corruption trials very effectively for years through ingenious means such as firing the financial police and arranging for fires in courthouses where evidence is stored).
https://www.elnacional.cat/es/politica/incendio-ciudad-justicia-valencia_190926_102.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%BCrtel_case

Regardless of one's views on independence, it is worth remembering that the Spanish government has been waging lawfare on Catalonia since 2006, first ordering the courts to review and eventually, four years later, to overturn a Catalan Statute of Autonomy that had already received parliamentary approval in Catalonia AND Spain. In 2006, there was no major push for independence. On July 9, 2010 the courts rejected this Statute and a day later 1.5 million Catalans protested on the street, kicking off the independence movement.

Catalans were so fed up of having their legislation consistently overturned by Spanish courts (on issues as diverse as fracking, gender equality, rent control and consumer protection) that in September 2015 they elected pro-independence parties with an absolute majority of seats.

All that the jailed Catalan government leaders have done is to deliver on their 2015 election platform: (a) hold an independence referendum and (b) declare independence on a yes vote. An election platform that was APPROVED by the election commission. Contrary to corporate media narratives, the Catalan independence movement is not rooted in ethnic identity. When the Spanish government overturns Catalan legislation which would have prohibited electricity companies cutting off supply to people who lose their jobs and can't afford to pay their bills--well what does that have to with "Catalan identity?"