BARCELONA — Hours after the Spanish authorities announced that they would seek to prosecute Catalonia’s separatists for rebellion, Carles Puigdemont, the region’s dismissed leader, arrived Monday in Belgium, where he may seek asylum.
Speculation had mounted over Puigdemont’s whereabouts over the course of a day when the central government in Madrid began putting in place its direct rule over the region, and announced that it would seek to bring charges of rebellion against Catalan leaders who declared a state separate from Spain on Friday.
Late Monday, a Flemish lawyer confirmed that Puigdemont had arrived to Belgium. “I have been consulted by Puigdemont and he asked me to protect his interests in the future in Belgium,’’ said Paul Bekaert. It has not been determined whether Puigdemont will ask for asylum.
Spain’s attorney general on Monday asked a court to charge Puigdemont and other top regional officials with rebelllion after they illegally declared independence from Spain.
Attorney General José Manuel Maza ordered Puigdemont and other separatist leaders in Catalonia to appear in court in Madrid in the coming days to face the charges.
Spanish judges will decide whether to charge them with rebellion, as well as sedition and misuse of public funds, for organizing and holding an independence referendum on Oct. 1 that had been declared illegal by the Spanish government and courts.
In a major escalation of Spain’s territorial conflict, the central government has taken charge of the region’s administration, with Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy invoking emergency constitutional powers to stifle the secessionist push in Catalonia.
Regional lawmakers declared independence on Friday, prompting Rajoy to fire Puigdemont and his Cabinet hours later. Rajoy also dissolved the Catalan Parliament, and regional elections are scheduled for Dec. 21.
The possibility that separatist leaders might be charged with rebellion has prompted a major dispute among lawyers.
Diego López Garrido, who drafted changes to the Spanish legal code relating to rebellion, told the television channel Antena 3 that “in my judgment, there is no crime of rebellion because no violence has been produced.’’
Jaume Alonso-Cuevillas, a lawyer for Puigdemont, told Antena 3 that the attorney general’s charge that his client was guilty of rebellion was “real nonsense.’’
At least one member of Puigdemont’s ousted Cabinet defiantly went to work Monday morning, after the region’s president sent a message over the weekend urging Catalans to peacefully oppose Madrid’s takeover and the removal of a democratically elected regional government.
Outside the Catalan Ministry for Planning and Sustainability, officials waited to see whether the regional minister, Josep Rull, who was among those fired, would try to exercise his duties, as he had promised over the weekend.
Asked who he thought was now regional minister, Jaume Santaeugenia, 39, a civil engineer at the ministry, said, “It’s Josep Rull; there’s no doubt about it.’’ But Santaeugenia added that he would accept orders from either Rull or his Madrid-appointed replacement, providing the orders were legal.
If found guilty of rebellion, Puigdemont, Rull, and others could each face up to 30 years in prison.
Puigdemont’s government had been flouting the Spanish Constitution since early September, when separatist lawmakers approved legislation to hold a binding referendum on independence as a key step toward statehood.
The referendum went ahead, but it was marred by clashes between the national police and Catalan citizens. Voters overwhelmingly approved independence, but the referendum took place without legal guarantees, and most Catalan opponents of independence stayed away from polling stations to protest the vote.
Maza, the attorney general, had warned that Puigdemont was likely to be arrested immediately if Catalonia declared independence, but the decision Monday indicates the authorities in Madrid are moving cautiously and want to avoid sending Spanish police officers to detain Catalan politicians on their home turf.
A Madrid judge could order prison without bail for Puigdemont and others, as happened this month with two other separatist leaders, Jordi Cuixart and Jordi Sanchez.
With the emergency measures taken over the weekend, Rajoy opted not to appoint a caretaker leader of Catalonia. Instead, the country’s deputy prime minister, Soraya Sáenz de Santamaría, took over management of the Catalan administration from Madrid and dispatched senior central government officials to Barcelona on Monday.
Juan Ignacio Zoido, the interior minister, said Monday that the takeover of the Catalan police force, known as the Mossos, had gone smoothly. He fired the Mossos police chief, Josep Lluís Trapero, over the weekend and appointed the deputy leader of the force, Ferran López, to the post.
“We wanted to send a message of trust to the Mossos,’’ Zoido told Antena 3. “It’s important that the Mossos should recover part of a lost credibility.’’
Under the emergency measures allowed by Spain’s Constitution, the provision invoked by Rajoy to take control of Catalonia, the government could replace the 17,000 officers of the Mossos with Spanish police officers. But Zoido said that “at no point did we consider eliminating the Mossos police corps.’’
