In an interview published in Switzerland’s Le Temps newspaper Anna Gabriel, a former Catalan lawmaker and member of the left-wing Popular Unity Candidacy (CUP) party, compares the situation in Catalonia to the crackdown in Turkey following the failed coup attempt in 2016. READ MORE: Leading Catalan separatist flees to Switzerland to evade justice

Gabriel, a top member of the far-left separatist CUP party, is the latest separatist to leave the country after deposed Catalan president Carles Puigdemont and four former regional ministers went to Belgium shortly after a failed bid to break from Spain. Anna Gabriel of the left-wing Popular Unity Candidacy (CUP), the third separatist power in the regional Catalan parliament which supported the government of Carles Puigdemont until it was deposed by the Spanish state in the wake of the controversial independence declaration last year, said she would not travel to Madrid, where she was due to attend a hearing on Wednesday at the Supreme Court. A Spanish court on Wednesday issued an arrest warrant valid only in Spain for a former Catalan MP who is in self-imposed exile in Switzerland to avoid jail while she is investigated over her role in the region's secession drive. The leader of a pro-Catalan independence party wanted for questioning by the Spanish authorities for her alleged role in a banned separatist referendum and its consequences, for which she could face charges of rebellion, has fled to Switzerland, she told journalists Tuesday.
Anna Gabriel, former member Parliament of Catalonia for Popular Unity Candidacy and Catalan independentism leader, flees to Switzerland before declaring before the Supreme Court of Spain amid rebellion and desobedience crime.