Fórum Canario Saharaui applauds the decision of the judge to reopen the case concerning the illegal entry into Spain of Brahim Ghali

The Fóum Canario Saharaui has issued an official statement in which it applauds the reopening of the case of prevarication and false documentation linked to the illegal entry of Brahim Ghali, leader of the Polisario Front, into Spain and the subsequent search with a false passport in the San Pedro Hospital in Logroño.

The consequence of this reopening of the case has been the release in absentia of Luali Brahim Sid El Mustafa, son of the Polisario leader, which is a very relevant fact for the Forum in the whole case against the figure of Ghali.

The official statement of the Fórum Canario Saharaui is reproduced below:

In relation to the recent news about the reopening of the case for prevarication and false documentation linked to the illegal entry of Brahim Ghali in Spain, and the subsequent search with a false passport in the San Pedro Hospital in Logroño, from the Fórum Canario Saharaui we state the following:

We applaud the decision of Judge Rafael Lasala, head of the Court of Instruction number 7 of Zaragoza where this case is being heard, to reopen the case, following a reasoned request by the private prosecution. The consequence of this reopening has been the placing in absentia, by the said court, of Brahim Ghali's son, Luali Brahim Sid El Mustafa, with this declaration being registered in the computer system and in the corresponding registers.

In this document, the lawyer for the private prosecution, Antonio Urdiales, uses as his main argument the persistent delay on the part of Algeria in replying to the Commission Rogatory sent by the said court around a year ago. This is a completely logical argument, and one which we at the Forum fully agree with.

A year to reply to a rogatory commission is not only a long time, it is a mockery on the part of a country which, moreover, has a judicial system that administers justice in a corrupt, opaque manner and without any respect for human rights, as has just been demonstrated in the recent case of the young French-Moroccan tourists machine-gunned by Algerian guards near the border with Morocco. Not surprisingly, a survivor was arrested and sentenced to 18 months in prison after a judicial process of suspicious and unprecedented speed and lack of transparency.

Regarding the arguments put forward by the private prosecution, we would like to point out that this was something that we had been warning about in previous communiqués from this Forum. In them we recalled the precedents in this regard. A clear example is what happened a few years ago, when Algeria put in a drawer and ignored sine die the Commission Rogatory that was sent to it from the Audiencia Nacional, in relation to the case that had been open for years in that instance for crimes of genocide, torture and illegal detention allegedly committed by Ghali and other leaders of the Polisario Front. This commission was set up in order to identify the defendants in the case, given the difficulties involved, and included a substantial list of 30 questions.

In his request, lawyer Antonio Urdiales expressed himself in similar terms, when he recalled that Algeria "is not going to comply with the aforementioned rogatory commission. What is more, they are not even going to deign to reply. Remember that the Juzgado Central de Instrucción nº 5 of the Audiencia Nacional, in case 1/2008, was freely dismissed thanks to the passivity of the Algerian authorities". A National Court that is still waiting for the letters rogatory requested at the time by Baltasar Garzón in 2008 (no less than 15 years waiting) and José de la Mata in 2017. With this type of attitude, Algeria repeatedly breaches the agreement on judicial assistance in criminal matters between Spain and Algeria, signed on 7 October 2002. This Algerian judicial obstructionism does not surprise us and, once again, we condemn it.

However, we must praise not only the patience, but also the perseverance of Judge Lasala in clarifying these facts, at the time redirecting the investigation to the possible crime of prevarication and false documentation, as well as all those related to the various cases related to the opaque entry of Brahim Ghali into Spain and his subsequent illegal stay in Logroño, which caused so many diplomatic headaches at the time.

Also that of Antonio Urdiales, the lawyer acting as public prosecutor. In fact, we must remember the constant pressures at the time by the State Attorney's Office, even leaving the Provincial Court of Zaragoza out of the investigation of the former Foreign Minister Arancha González Laya in a suspicious and debatable decision.

A perseverance which, unfortunately, the National Court did not have in its day when it came to responding to the rogatory commission that they carried out. A passivity which, added to the ill-intentioned Algerian judicial disregard, led to the subsequent and regrettable dismissal of the case by Judge Santiago Pedraz, with the aggravating circumstance that the aforementioned crimes were particularly serious, as the private prosecution also recalls in its brief.

In short, the Fórum Canario Saharaui welcomes these judicial proceedings aimed at clarifying whether the border code was knowingly violated in order to bring Ghali into Spain, as well as the possible falsification of documents during his stay, with his son as the main actor. A complete violation of the Schengen regulation, among many other things. From which we hope that the corresponding criminal consequences will finally be drawn.