Belgian prosecutor waives appeal in Lluís Puig's case, who will not be extradited

BrusselsThe Belgian Public Prosecutor's Office will not appeal against the Court of Appeal's judgement refusing to grant Lluís Puig's European arrest warrant. Therefore, the former Minister of Culture will not be extradited to Spain to be tried for embezzlement and his case is closed definitively. The Prosecutor's Office had 24 hours to appeal the case to the Court of Cassation, but has finally decided not to do so, as advanced by the ACN and Efe and confirmed by the ARA.

The Belgian justice system rejected the European arrest warrant against Lluís Puig for the second time on Thursday. The first time was in August, when the court of first instance in Brussels ruled that the Spanish Supreme Court was not competent to issue the euro warrant. This time, moreover, the Belgian justice system considered that there was a "violation of the presumption of innocence", according to the former Minister's defence.

The decision puts an end to the third Euro-order against Lluís Puig. The request for extradition was sent by Spanish Supreme Court judge Pablo Llarena in October 2019, a few weeks after the ruling in the case against the independence bid. In this case, he was wanted for misappropriation of funds while the crimes of rebellion and sedition, present in the other two Euro-orders, disappeared.