El 'caso Ghali' se enquista y apunta hacia la cúpula del Gobierno

In the middle of the détente between Rabat and Madrid, the Government faces an adverse judicial horizon after the imputation of the former Minister of Foreign Affairs, Arancha Gonzalez Laya, and the potential summons of the former Vice-President of the Executive, Carmen Calvo. Two of the four figures of the cabinet that would be implicated in the alleged irregular entry into Spain of the leader of the Polisario Front, Brahim Ghali.

The head of the Court of Instruction Number 7 of Zaragoza, Rafael Lasala, is now investigating whether a crime of false documentation was committed during the arrival of the Saharawi. In April, a plane chartered by Algeria arrived at the Zaragoza air base without going through the usual border controls or showing documentation. On board was Brahim Ghali, suffering from a respiratory ailment caused by COVID-19, sent for emergency admission to the San Pedro hospital in Logroño.

Transported by ambulance, the president of the so-called Saharawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR) registered at the center under a false identity, under the name of "Mohamed Benbatouche". The Minister of the Interior, Fernando Grande-Marlaska, is said to have previously opposed his arrival because of possible reprisals from Morocco. Ghali is the number one enemy of the Alaouite Kingdom. For this reason, the Executive would have tried to avoid at all costs that Rabat would echo the facts before informing them directly.

But Morocco found out. That's when the most serious diplomatic crisis since the 2002 incident on Perejil Island erupted. Five months later, in the middle of a palpable rapprochement between the parties, the Spanish Justice tries to shed light on the opaque conditions in which the Polisario leader entered the country, all as a result of a popular accusation instigated by a former PP deputy, a Tangier businessman and a lawyer with Moroccan family.

The magistrate has requested information about the existence of European arrest warrants or "mere location in order to appear before a judicial authority" issued for Ghali during his entry into Spain. He has also asked to be notified in case there is any type of community alert on "Brahim Ghali Moustafa" or "Gali Sidi-Mohamed Abdelyelil", false identities that the National Police relate to the Polisario leader, reports Europa Press.

However, the most outstanding movements of the judge have had to do with the imputation last Tuesday to the former head of the Foreign Ministry. A day after his successor in office, José Manuel Albares, held a meeting with his Moroccan counterpart, Nasser Bourita, to arrange a bilateral summit in the coming weeks, aimed at normalizing ties on both sides of the Strait.

Gonzalez Laya will make a statement after his second in command during his stay at the head of the Ministry, Camilo Villarino, did the same two weeks earlier. Laya's chief of staff told the prosecutor that he believed that the ambulance that transported Ghali to La Rioja was escorted by a police operation and that, in addition, inside the hospital there were agents deployed by the Interior, according to ABC newspaper. A testimony that opened the door to the summons of Laya and to a possible participation of Minister Marlaska.

Villarino narrated before the judge a conversation she would have had with the chief of staff of the then first vice-president of the Government, María Isabel Valldecabres, in which the latter told her of the imminent arrival in Spain of the Saharawi leader, to the ignorance of Villarino himself. A statement that explains in turn the imputation of Calvo's 'number two' for next October 18, which will coincide with the summons of the chief of staff of the Minister of the Interior, Grande-Marlaska, as revealed by El Periódico de Aragón.

The popular accusation has requested the testimony of the former vice-president. Before that, it will have to settle for the testimony of the former technical secretary general of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, José María Muriel Palomino, summoned for October 4, according to Vozpópuli.

There is a determining factor in this matter, and that is that Brahim Ghali has had Spanish nationality since 2004, the year in which he obtained it through the civil registry of Valencia. The Saharawi's parents also held Spanish citizenship because they were born in the Spanish Sahara. The leader of the Polisario Front would have obtained the DNI in 2006 and renewed it just a decade later, according to El Pais. A conditioning factor that ends up entangling the whole 'Ghali case'.