Il Nuovo Postiglione - Fugitive Catalan separatist leader Puigdemont in Belgium

"Today I am in Waterloo after an extremely difficult few days," he wrote in Catalan on X, formerly Twitter, referring to the Belgian town where he has spent most of the past seven years.

Puigdemont, who fled abroad after leading a failed 2017 independence bid for Catalonia, defied an arrest warrant to return to Spain on Thursday.

He delivered a speech to thousands gathered at the Catalan regional parliament in Barcelona before slipping away.

The 61-year-old had been expected to try to enter the parliament building for a vote to pick a new leader for the wealthy northeastern region. Instead he disappeared into the crowd.

His lawyer, Gonzalo Boye, and the secretary general of Puigdemont's hardline separatist JxCAT party, Josep Turull, had both told Catalan radio earlier Friday that he had headed back to Belgium.

But Eduard Sallent, head of Catalonia's regional police, the Mossos d'Esquadra, said Friday he had not ruled out that Puigdemont might still be in Barcelona.

- Police manhunt -

Catalonia's regional police launched a manhunt for Puigdemont after Thursday's appearance, insisting in a statement issued after he evaded them that there had been no collusion with him.

Officers had planned to arrest him "at the most opportune time so as not to generate public disorder", the force said.

Two officers were arrested on Thursday, including one who owned the car he had used to leave the scene. Released after a few hours, they are still accused of having helped Puigdemont.

The force told AFP on Friday that a third officer had now been arrested over the incident.

Supreme Court judge Pablo Llarena, who issued the arrest warrant for Puigdemont, on Friday demanded the names of the officers who approved the operation to arrest Puigdemont.

He also wanted the names of those "entrusted with its execution or operational deployment", according to a court document.

Sallent said his force had been ready to arrest Puigdemont near the regional parliament, but he did not go there as had been expected.

"The events unfolded very quickly," he said, adding Puigdemont was "surrounded by a crowd of people and authorities" with the "aim of obstructing the action of the police".

Puigdemont led the regional government in 2017, when it carried out an independence referendum despite a court ban.

A short-lived declaration of independence sparked Spain's worst political crisis since the country returned to democracy following the death of dictator Francisco Franco in 1975.

Puigdemont fled Spain shortly after the failed independence bid to avoid prosecution and has since lived in Belgium and more recently France.

While Spain's parliament passed an amnesty law in May for those involved in the secession bid, the Supreme Court ruled on July 1 that the measure would not fully apply to Puigdemont.

- 'Unspeakable' -

Puigdemont's latest escape has brought political recriminations,

The head of Spain's main opposition Popular Party, Alberto Nunez Feijoo, said the interior and defence ministers should be dismissed for the "police negligence" that allowed Puigdemont to evade arrest.

"What happened yesterday is unspeakable and cannot go unpunished," he wrote on social network X.

But Justice Minister Felix Bolanos said the operation to arrest Puigdemont "was the responsibility of the Mossos", whose job it was to enforce court orders in Catalonia.

"In Spain the law must be respected and court orders must be complied with," the minister said.

Catalonia's parliament on Thursday elected Salvador Illa of Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez's Socialists as Catalonia's first head not from the pro-independence movement since 2010.

F.Ciambrone--INP