Fórum Canario Saharaui demands more legal rigor towards Ghali in Spain after the official recognition by the Polisario of human rights violations

The Fórum Canario Saharaui has asked, in relation to the latest information concerning Brahim Ghali, leader of the Polisario Front, for greater legal rigour towards Ghali in Spain, following the official recognition by the Polisario of human rights violations against its own population.

The press release of the Fórum Canario Saharaui is reproduced below:

We welcome the news of a few days ago where it was agreed to request a rogatory commission to Algeria by Rafael Lasala - head of the Court of Instruction number 7 of Zaragoza, where this case is being followed - to clarify who falsified the documentation with which the Polisario leader was registered in the hospital of Logroño to treat pneumonia caused by Covid, in a possible commission of crimes of prevarication and false documentation. The purpose of all this is to find out whether the photocopy of the passport presented at the hospital corresponds in its form to a passport issued by the Algerian authorities in a regular manner. In short, to know whether the identity of the person identified there, Mohamed Benbatouche, is certain.

This is important, among other things, because it should be remembered that he had been in the Audiencia Nacional for years on a case for crimes of genocide, torture and illegal detention, that barely a month before his arrival, an unsuccessful attempt had been made to locate him with the complicity of the Algerian authorities, and that previously another rogatory commission had been sent to Algeria itself without success in order to identify the defendants in this case, and which included a substantial list of 30 questions.

Obviously we do not expect a positive result from this new rogatory commission for the identification of Ghali on his arrival in Logroño, since Algeria put in a drawer and ignored sine die the first rogatory commission mentioned above, thus repeatedly failing to comply with the Agreement on judicial assistance in criminal matters between Spain and Algeria, signed on 7 October 2002. However, we believe that the perseverance and patience of Judge Lasala in this case should be praised, as well as that of Antonio Urdiales, the lawyer representing the public prosecution, in leading the investigation to clarify the possible commission of crimes of prevarication and false documentation, after enduring constant pressure from the State Attorney's Office, and after the Provincial Court of Zaragoza arbitrarily acquitted the former Foreign Minister Arancha González Laya of the case.

In any case, in reference to Brahim Ghali, there are more and more shadows hanging over this character throughout history. In fact, and after more than 15 years of denouncing him from this Fórum Canario Saharaui, it was the Polisario Front itself a few days ago that acknowledged numerous cases of internal repression and multiple human rights violations during practically its entire existence. It was Ghali himself, in his speech on the occasion of Saharawi nationality, who announced for the first time in its history (albeit somewhat euphemistically) 'reparations to the victims of past errors and abuses'. An institutional process to recognise, for the first time in 50 years, the commission of crimes against humanity in the Algerian Tindouf camps against its own dissident population. A statement which, not by chance, comes after criticism from young Saharawis in Tindouf, who days earlier publicly denounced their own leaders in the official Polisario media (something unheard of), calling for a "necessary generational renewal due to mistrust of the Polisario leadership because of its irresponsible and harmful conduct".

We believe that this news is sufficiently important not to have gone suspiciously unnoticed in most Spanish media, as it has been. Especially by the usual Polisario spokesmen in Spain, who day after day not only denied it and defended the perpetrators, but also mocked those of us who denounced these events. Where have these unofficial Polisario spokesmen in Spain gone now, who are so critical of this type of events when they go in one direction? They are neither here nor expected. They only have eyes and ears for these things when they serve their interests, which usually coincide with those of Algeria, needless to say why. In fact, one of their leading exponents was in the camps as a special envoy for his media when this news broke. But still no news from Francisco.

According to various sources, the number of political prisoners killed and tortured in summary imprisonment processes now recognised by the Polisario could reach 350, all of Saharawi origin, although it is estimated to be a very low figure. There is no need for words. This acknowledgement by the Polisario proves something we stated in one of our previous communiqués when some of the cases against Ghali were shelved and grandiloquent headlines in his favour appeared: "the fact that Spanish justice, for the moment, has not wanted to look beyond these cases, does not mean that they have not happened or that the aforementioned Brahim Ghali is not implicated".

In this sense, from this Forum we support the recent petition of the Saharawi Association for the Defence of Human Rights (ASADEDH), promoter of one of the complaints before the National High Court against Ghali, in which it asks the Attorney General's Office to take note in the process now open in the Supreme Court on the systematic violations carried out in the Polisario camps in Algeria. All this is happening now after Judge Pedraz filed the complaint of ASADEDH, after that lukewarm and infamous telematic interrogation that was given to Ghali while he was admitted to the San Pedro Hospital in Logroño. Therefore, this judge now has the opportunity to make amends for that mistake in a few days, on 24 October, when he will take a statement from Abba Bouzeid, a witness to the torture that the Saharawi activist Fadel Breica allegedly suffered at the hands of the Polisario Front on the orders of Ghali himself, in the other case that is still open in the Audiencia Nacional. Let us hope that this time, in view of the Polisario's recent statement, it will be taken more seriously and rigorously.

Finally, we would like to highlight our participation last week at the United Nations headquarters in New York, in the IV Commission: Special Policy and Decolonisation, where in the intervention of our Vice President, Ignacio Ortiz, we denounced some of the facts previously reported in this communiqué regarding human rights violations by the Polisario in general, and Brahim Ghali in particular. Both towards the Saharawi population, as well as towards Spanish military and civilians in the infamous 'black decade' with the well-known attacks on Spanish fishermen and workers in the area during the 70s and 80s. In this regard, during our stay in New York, our association also sent a letter to the President of the Security Council denouncing these events, as well as stressing the need for a prompt solution to this problem from a pragmatic and realistic perspective.