Puigdemont in German court as arrest ignites Catalan protests  

Former Catalan president Carles Puigdemont is to appear in court on March 26 following his arrest in Germany which triggered a wave of protests in Catalonia where thousands of separatists faced off with police.

Puigdemont spent the night in a German jail cell following his arrest Sunday after he crossed the border from Denmark, under a European warrant issued by Spain.

The arrest comes five months after Puigdemont went on the run as Spanish prosecutors sought to charge him with sedition and rebellion in the wake of a vote by the Catalan parliament to declare independence.

It marks the latest chapter in a secession saga that has bitterly divided Catalans and triggered Spain’s worst political crisis in decades.

According to Puigdemont’s lawyer Jaume Alonso-Cuevillas, he was on his way back to Belgium, where he fled after Spanish authorities moved to impose direct rule over Catalonia.

“It will take place in the course of the day, probably in the afternoon,” a spokeswoman for the prosecutor’s office for Schleswig-Holstein state told AFP.