By Joan Faus
BARCELONA (Reuters) - Now you see him, now you really, really don't.
"It was magic," said former Barcelona mayor Xavier Trias, of how Catalan separatist leader Carles Puigdemont appeared at a rally in central Barcelona on Thursday and then, embarrassingly for authorities, disappeared.
Puigdemont, 61, faces an arrest warrant for alleged embezzlement over his role in holding an illegal referendum on independence for Catalonia in 2017. Nonetheless, he returned to Spain as he had previously announced, setting foot in the country for the first time since fleeing to Belgium by car that year.
And at least by Thursday evening, he had not been arrested.
Wearing a blue jacket, tie and trainers, Puigdemont was filmed approaching the early morning rally from a side street.
Shielding his face, he walked beside Jordi Turull, his party's secretary general, and two other men in baseball caps.
They emerged into a crowd of supporters, who formed a circle around Puigdemont and began to chant "President!" and film on phones.
He broke into a run to reach the stage at the Arc de Triomf boulevard where he gave a short speech before a crowd that organisers said numbered some 10,000 people. He had returned, he said, to exercise his right to participate in a parliamentary vote for the region's new president.
Then he disappeared.
Video footage shows Puigdemont's longtime lawyer Gonzalo Boye gesture to him from behind a white screen on the stage and appear to mouth the word "vamonos" - "let's go".
A loudspeaker announcement asked supporters to form a "human corridor" to escort Puigdemont and other separatist politicians to the nearby regional parliament for the vote. The other politicians started out, followed closely by the media.
Puigdemont could not be seen.
GETAWAY CAR
Authorities suspect that Puigdemont got into a white car belonging to a police officer and left the vicinity, a spokesperson for the Catalan interior department said.
The regional police, known as the Mossos d'Esquadra, said two of its officers had been arrested as the force investigated Puigdemont's whereabouts. One of them was the owner of the car believed to have been used as a getaway vehicle.
The police had tried but failed to stop the vehicle, the Mossos said in a statement, adding that it had intended to arrest Puigdemont on his return to Catalonia, but at a time designed to avoid public disorder.
La Vanguardia newspaper published a picture and video showing a car that appeared to have come from an underground parking garage, with a wheelchair in the front passenger seat.
A Catalan government source told Reuters authorities believe the car was waiting in a disabled parking slot.
The source said a small group of Mossos officers loyal to Puigdemont - who had provided security to him in neighbouring France while they were off duty - were involved.
The group was part of a special security unit created by the previous regional government and dismantled by the current one, the source said, adding, "We have a problem with that group and we knew it".
Mossos launched Operation Cage, setting up road blocks and checking car boots on routes out of the city, but by Thursday evening had failed to trap their prey.
"I cannot tell you anything (about) where he went," Josep Rius, a close confidant of Puigdemont and spokesperson for his Junts party, told Reuters.
(Reporting by Joan Faus and Belen Carreno; Writing by Sarah Young and Aislinn Laing; Editing by Frances Kerry)
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