The Mallorcan rapper Valtònyc arrived at Barcelona Airport at 6.30 this Sunday with the intention of flying to Palma this Sunday morning, and he did not want to make any statements.
From the moment his return was made public, several close people and friends have promoted the organization of a welcome event and, finally, a tribute has been organized in the Plaza de Sineu, scheduled for 11 a.m., to welcome him. to the artist who fled to Belgium to avoid the censorship of the Spanish Justice.
On Saturday night he crossed the border of La Jonquera (Girona), five years after being in Belgium, he himself announced on the social network ‘X’.
He arrived at El Prat airport accompanied by family members and at 6:50 he passed passenger control with another person.
“I could only enter the country with the help of my friends Lluís Puig and Vicent Partal,” he said on Saturday in a tweet in reference to the former Minister of the Generalitat and the director of VilaWeb, Vicent Partal, the media that published the news. .
“Thank you for having been with me from the first day. Happy to set foot in the Catalan Countries again,” he added.
Valtònyc has made the decision to return from Belgium after having expired the sentence of three and a half years in prison that the National Court imposed on him for crimes such as glorifying terrorism and insults to the crown, thus rendering the international arrest warrants null and void. earrings.
In an order dated last March, the National Court declares the statute of limitations on the prison sentences imposed and annuls the search and arrest warrants against the rapper, as requested by the Prosecutor’s Office after five years have passed since that the sentence became final.
The rapper still has a trial pending for November 21 in the Seville Court in which the Prosecutor’s Office asks him for five years in prison for a crime of provocation to commit an attack and threats – which would not have prescribed – for shouting at a concert expressions like “put a fucking bomb on the prosecutor” or “shoot a civil guard.”
The Court allowed Valtònyc to testify by videoconference in the trial from his residence in Belgium, but his lawyer announced this Saturday that he plans to attend the hearing, once the sentence that prevented him from returning to Spain without risk of being arrested.
The president of the Generalitat Carles Puigdemont accompanied the singer on the first part of the trip by car, although he will later return to Belgium, as explained by Boye.
“Thank you for having accompanied me during these six years of exile and now also on this first journey back home. For everything we have fought, laughed, lived and cried. Thank you, president,” says the rapper in his message online. social.
Puigdemont, for his part, wished him from his X account: “May you have a good return to your land, which is ours. With you Valtònyc, we all return a little.”
The Catalan president thanks him for having “resisted in an unjust exile” and for accompanying him without “ever failing”, after which he shows his gratitude for having been able to accompany him on the first part of the trip.
The singer plans to visit both Catalonia and Mallorca and his name appears on the poster for a concert in support of the Palestinian cause that will be held tomorrow in Barcelona.
Valtònyc fled to Belgium in 2018 to avoid imprisonment, once the Supreme Court declared final the sentence of the National Court that condemned him for glorifying terrorism and insulting the crown, in the lyrics of his songs.
The Spanish justice system attempted the extradition of Josep Miquel Arenas, but the Belgian courts stopped it on two occasions: in 2021, they rejected it, arguing that the rapper’s lyrics were protected by freedom of expression, a decision that the Prosecutor’s Office appealed to make his delivery possible. for a crime of common insults.
In 2022, the Court of Appeal of Ghent again rejected the request of the Spanish justice system, concluding that insults to the king are not a crime in Belgium.
