Former Catalan President Carles Puigdemont will return to self-imposed exile in Belgium should judges decide he not be extradited to Spain, he told reporters a day after being released from a German jail.

“My plan is to remain in Berlin, it’s my residence now until the end of this process,” Mr Puidgemont said on Saturday at a hastily organised news conference in the German capital. “My goal is to return to Belgium, but only after the end of the processes here in Germany - not before.”

The deposed leader left a prison in the northern state of Schleswig-Holstein on Friday afternoon after posting €75,000 (£65,000) in bail. He had been there since March 25, when he was arrested crossing the border from Denmark.

Mr Puigdemont was driving through Germany after an engagement in Finland, where he had already narrowly avoided authorities on a European arrest warrant issued by Spain.

“My duty as a president was not to remain silent or quiet in a safe place,” he told media. “I said from the beginning I wanted to explain all around Europe the political situation in Catalonia.”