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Exiled Catalan president Carles Puigdemont will have to remain in prison until the issue of his extradition to Spain is resolved. Sources close to the exiled president, who was detained on Sunday in Germany while returning from Finland, say that a “very provisional” measure remanding him to prison has been adopted while a decision is made on whether to formally begin processing Spain's request for extradition.  

The Catalan president was transferred early on Monday afternoon from the prison of Neumünster to the court of first instance. The German judge started the process of identification, to ensure that police had arrested the person named in the European arrest warrant, this being the first step in the extradition formalities. Puigdemont refused to be extradited and the examining judge will now have to transfer the case to the regional court, the High Court of Justice of Schleswing-Holstein, where the alleged offences and facts will be studied.

The judge not only has to review the offences allegedly committed - these, under Spanish law, are defined as rebellion and misuse of public funds - but also has to examine whether the facts that Spanish judge Pablo Llarena reports in his indictment document are regarded under German law as crimes and, specifically, which crimes. According to the legal experts, the crime of rebellion is similar to that of high treason. "It has similar content and the description of the crime is very similar", say these sources. 

Article 83 of the German criminal code refers to cases of high treason in which violence does not necessarily have to occur. 

The definition of high treason, which would be the offence most compatible with the Spanish crime of rebellion, is in the second section of the legislation on treason. There are 3 articles that define the offence of high treason at different levels and punishes them with different types of sentences.

Article 81 says a person who commits high treason uses "force or the threat of force".

Article 83, however, opens the door to rebellion without violent uprising: "Any person who prepares a specific treasonous enterprise against the Confederation will be punished with imprisonment of from one year to ten years, or in minor cases from one to five years".

This is what the judge will have to evaluate: whether the facts reported by judge Llarena are compatible with the German legislation which opens the door to an offence of high treason without the actual use of violence, but rather, the mere act of preparing treason against the state.

Deputy speaker of the Catalan Parliament and MP for JxCat, Josep Costa, has stated in a tweet that, according to the lawyers, the judge will clarify Puigdemont's situation in Germany and Spain's request for extradition this Tuesday.