Catalan separatist leader Carles Puigdemont used straw hats and subterfuge to evade an arrest warrant in Barcelona and may still be hiding out in Spain, police say as they faced a storm of criticism for failing to detain him.
Puigdemont returned to Spain after seven years of self-imposed exile, defied the warrant to address a rally of supporters on Thursday, then escaped in scenes worthy of a crime caper film.
Eduard Sallent, commissioner of the Catalan regional police, said his officers had waited until after the rally to avoid a public confrontation.
But on ending his speech, Puigdemont went backstage and slipped behind a tent where he put on a baseball cap and jumped into a car parked nearby, the police chief said.
Officers raced towards the vehicle but a group of around 50 people, all wearing straw hats, "made a wall" to block them, the chief said.
Police were two metres away when the car raced away, he said.
"It was an operation that failed in its objective of arresting Puigdemont, which can be defined as a mistake, but we weren't made to look like fools. The Mossos did what they were asked to do," he said, referring to the force's official name, the Mossos d'Esquadra.
Puigdemont's party said on Friday he was now headed back to Belgium, where he has lived in self-imposed exile since leading a failed bid for Catalonia's secession in 2017.
Junts party General Secretary Jordi Turull told RAC1 radio that he did not know whether Puigdemont had already reached his base in Waterloo.
Journalists who knocked on the door of Puigdemont's home in Waterloo on Friday were told he was not expected there.
Puigdemont's lawyer, Gonzalo Boye, also told RAC1 that Puigdemont had left Spain and would make a public statement "in the coming days".
But Sallent, cast doubt on those accounts and said the hunt for the Catalan leader continued.
"I do not rule out that this man is still in Barcelona," Sallent said.
"I have no objective evidence that Mr Puigdemont is in Belgium, rather I think that is what they want me to believe and we do not work with assumptions, much less with statements from interested parties."
Puigdemont sought to lead Catalonia to independence in 2017 with a referendum that was declared illegal.
He then fled the country hidden in a car and spent most of his time in exile in Belgium.
He was later also based in southern France.
Two policemen were later arrested on suspicion of helping him flee.
Spain has an amnesty for separatists, but there is still an arrest warrant for Puigdemont, accused by investigating judge Pablo Llarena of embezzlement in 2017, an offence exempt from the amnesty.
with Reuters
