Puigdemont’s lawyer, Gonzalo Boye, also spoke to RAC1 on Friday and said that the former regional president had left Spain, but he did not give further details on his whereabouts.
Spain’s interior ministry had not replied to a request for comment at the time of publication.
Puigdemont, the former Catalan president and figurehead of the region’s independence movement, appeared in public in Barcelona on Thursday, gave a speech and then vanished. He returned on the day that the Catalan parliament was voting on Socialist Salvador Illa becoming regional president.
In the subsequent hours, Catalan police launched a manhunt and locked down Barcelona for several hours. They were unable to apprehend Puigdemont, who has had an arrest warrant in his name since fleeing the country seven years ago.
The police are facing tough questions, with two officers arrested Thursday accused of helping Puigdemont with his escape. The Catalan police, known as Mossos d’Esquadra, had not replied to a request for comment at the time of publication.
Spain’s main police union, Jupol, said the politician’s escape was “a scandal” that represented “an unacceptable dereliction of duty” on the part of the police. The right-leaning Unified Police Union demanded that the country’s National Police Force and Civil Guard take charge and that the regional officers be excluded from the investigation.
The Catalan interior minister and the police chief will give a press conference later Friday morning.
