Der Spiegel (in German), the most important weekly news magazine in Germany, has said that the higher regional court of Schleswig-Holstein hasn't been moved by any of the new information presented by Spain to support its application for president Carles Puigdemont's extradition for rebellion. "All the additional evidence, documents and videos against Puigdemont that the Madrid judge Pablo Llarena has supplied in the past six weeks hasn't impressed the Schleswig judges".
According to the magazine, "Carles Puigdemont's prosecutor could hardly have got a clearer defeat in their second attempt" to extradite the president. In their opinion, the court's press statement hides the fact that the judges' ruling "is an much greater defeat still for the prosecutors and, above all, for Spain's Supreme Court, than it seems at first".
The German judges reached their decision because they were unimpressed by the new evidence from Spain. According to Der Spiegel, Llarena has provided three videos to substantiate his argument. One shows Mossos d'Esquadra (Catalan police) briefly opposing Spanish security forces who "wanted to act against a crowd of people" on the day of the referendum. The other two films show Spanish police being attacked by demonstrators with barriers and a chair. Puigdemont does not appear in either of them.
But the German judges believe the images only reflect "individual incidents", and don't change the case. "They don't take Puigdemont for a violent offender", says the magazine, "this means: should judge Llarena not present serious, new evidence for Puigdemont's involvement in violent acts at the last minute, Germany won't extradite him for rebellion".
Misuse of public funds doubtful
According to Der Spiegel, doubts also remain over the second charge presented by Spanish prosecutors, misuse of public funds. "The material supplied by Spanish authorities could be 'inconsistent' and following German law, a criminal investigation could have 'rather questionable outcome'. Spain's finance minister had announced that the Catalan government hadn't paid for the forbidden referendum with public money".
They also add that it's "curious" that Schleswig-Holstein prosecutors have still not presented an application for a conclusion on the permissibility of his extradition when, in theory, the deadline for the court to decide for or against Puigdemont's extradition in this Friday, 25th May. They have no explanation for why this might be. They conclude that, now, Puigdemont's defence "has now got many good arguments".