'This is over': Puigdemont's Catalan independence doubts caught on camera

Ousted president’s private messages caught on TV cameras reveal admission of defeat

Sam Jones in Madrid and Stephen Burgen in Barcelona
Wed 31 Jan 2018 12.35 GMT

The ousted Catalan president, Carles Puigdemont, has admitted privately that his attempt to secure regional independence is over and claims he has been sacrificed by his own side, according to messages sent to a colleague and captured by TV cameras.

On Wednesday, a Spanish TV show published messages that Puigdemont had sent to his former health minister Toni Comín while the latter was at an event in Leuven, Belgium, the previous evening.

Sent using the Signal messaging app and written in Catalan, the texts were caught by a TV camera behind Comín and aired by Telecinco’s Ana Rosa programme.

They mention “the last days of republican Catalonia” and suggest the deposed leader is preparing to abandon his attempt to return to office.

“I guess you’ve realised that this is over,” reads one. “Our people have sacrificed us. Or at least me.” It goes on to refer to the pro-independence Catalan MP Joan Tardà, to allow another candidate to become president: “You will be ministers (I hope and wish) but I’ve already been sacrificed just like Tardà said.”

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