BRUSSELS — As members of the Catalan regional government spent their first night in jail in Spain, ousted president Carles Puigdemont was weighing his legal options in hiding in Belgium. But there is a legal equivalent for embezzlement, another of the possible charges pending in Spain. “For a European arrest warrant to be issued, the offence has to be more or less the same in Belgian law and in Spanish law. He added that, despite the case’s profound political implications, the legal procedure in Belgium should be free of political interference. “The idea behind the European arrest warrant, which entered force on Jan. 1, 2004, is that there is no longer any political power that can say whether a person can stay or not.

Source: National Post November 02, 2017 18:56 UTC