HE has been hounded across Europe by Spain and living in exile in Belgium for the past year. Now former Catalan president Carles Puigdemont has been named as one of the favourites to win this year’s Nobel Peace Prize.

Time magazine listed him as joint as third favourite for the prize, behind Kim Jong-un and Moon Jae-in, the leaders of North and South Korea and US President Donald Trump.

Ladbrokes and some online betting sites had Puigdemont at odds of 12/1 while William Hill offered 14/1 – better than Pope Francis (20/1), Vladimir Putin (25/1), or 100/1 shot Jeremy Corbyn.

An online poll for El Nacional last night indicated 60% of more than 20,000 who voted thought Puigdemont should receive the prize, while 40% were against.

There are more than 330 nominees for this year’s prize – said to be the second-highest number of candidates ever – which will be announced by live video feed from the Norwegian Nobel Institute, in Oslo, later this morning.

Puigdemont is usually quite active on social media but made no comment yesterday on his placing.

Others were more forthright. Aleix Sarri Camargo, international affairs co-ordinator for his successor, Quim Torra, tweeted: “A great achievement for the Catalan non-violent struggle for self-determination in its search of global recognition.”

And international lawyer Ben Emmerson wrote: “Whether he eventually gets it or not, his shortlisting is a positive sign of international recognition for the Catalan independence movement.”

Previous Nobel Peace Prize winners include Malala Yousafzai (2014), Barack Obama (2009), Nelson Mandela (1993) and the Dalai Lama (1989). Meanwhile, a letter from Torra to Spanish Prime Minister, Pedro Sanchez, has been copied in to world leaders – including Nicola Sturgeon, Theresa May, Trump and Pope Francis – urging Spain to take part in a “mediated dialogue” with Catalonia.

The substance of the letter is toned down from Torra’s November ultimatum to Spain earlier this week, but he said he believed his government had the “necessary popular mandate” to act on the issues of self-determination and the continued incarceration of nine political prisoners.

“I am now writing to you formally to ask you to authorise your government to enter mediated dialogue as quickly as possible,” he wrote.

“The Catalan side is ready to begin this process without preconditions. The gap is not... unbridgeable.”

Torra said they were not set on immediate independence, but on a “legally binding free and fair referendum, in which both sides agree to abide by the result”.

This, he said, would ensure respect for the democratically expressed will of the majority of Catalans. Torra urge Sanchez to intervene to ask the public prosecutor to drop charges against the jailed politicians and public figures, or lift objections to their provisional release before trial. He added: “I am copying this letter to the EU and world leaders listed below so that the dialogue process can be as transparent as possible.”

However, he warned: “Let me reiterate that in the absence of meaningful dialogue, my prediction is that the trial and conviction of the political prisoners is likely to lead to an overwhelming demand for immediate independence from Spain.”