Former Catalan separatist leader Carles Puigdemont defied an arrest warrant to appear at a rally in the Spanish city of Barcelona on Thursday after seven years of self-imposed exile, and then vanished before police could arrest him. Amid a heavy police presence, Puigdemont spoke to a crowd of thousands of followers in the Catalan capital from a platform near the Catalan parliament before disappearing backstage. He told the crowd he aimed to revive the independence drive that plunged Spain into political crisis seven years ago. “Today, many thought they’d be celebrating my arrest, and thought that this punishment would dissuade us – and you,” he said. “Today I came to remind them that we are still here! We are still here because we have no right to quit.” Senior officials of his Junts party, including parliament speaker Josep Rull, and members of the moderate separatist Esquerra Republicana de Catalunya which…
