Spain’s Supreme Court dropped a terrorism investigation into former Catalan President and separatist leader Carles Puigdemont on Tuesday.
Puigdemont had been the subject of a probe since February over his alleged ties to a Catalan pro-independence civil disobedience group, Democratic Tsunami, which led a series of demonstrations in 2019.
Supreme Court magistrate Susana Polo shelved the case on Tuesday after Spain’s National Court determined that investigating judge Manuel García-Castellón had improperly extended his investigation into the group in June 2021.
That procedural error invalidated all inquiries carried out since that date, as well as the designation of Puigdemont as a target of the investigation earlier this year.
The end of the terrorism probe does not, however, affect a 2017 arrest warrant for embezzlement that was issued against Puigdemont, who fled to Belgium following a failed Catalan independence referendum that same year.
Last week the Supreme Court rejected a request to apply the country’s new amnesty law to Puigdemont and other Catalan independence leaders. The Spanish government’s legal service on Tuesday appealed that ruling, arguing the court was making a “micro-literal interpretation” of the law.