Eduardo González
The Minister of Foreign Affairs, Arancha Gonzalez Laya, confirmed yesterday that the leader of the Polisario Front, Brahim Ghali, is in Spain for “strictly humanitarian reasons” and assured that this fact “in no way disturbs the excellent relations with Morocco”.
“I confirm the presence of Brahim Ghali in Spain for strictly humanitarian reasons”, specifically to receive “medical treatment”, the minister declared during a joint press conference with her Palestinian counterpart, Riyad Malik, at the ministerial headquarters of the Viana Palace in Madrid. It is “a humanitarian gesture” about the details of which “the greatest discretion” must be kept and which “in no way disturbs or impedes Spain’s excellent relations with Morocco, a privileged partner”, she continued.
“Spain is, at the same time, a partner, a privileged partner of Morocco and a responsible country with its humanitarian obligations” and, therefore, “with all those who need humanitarian support”, concluded the minister, who avoided any precision on the circumstances of the transfer or on whether there has been any official reaction from Morocco for this reason. The Moroccan Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Moroccan Embassy in Madrid have not yet commented on this event.
Brahim Ghali, 73 years old, remains in serious condition due to respiratory complications in a hospital in Logroño. According to the international media Jeune Afrique, Ghali (former delegate of the Polisario Front in Spain) was admitted under a false identity supposedly to evade the lawsuit opened in 2016 against him by the Audiencia Nacional (National Court) for alleged human rights violations in the Saharawi camps of Tindouf, in Algeria.
The SADR Presidency assured last Thursday in a statement that Brahim Ghali has been “undergoing treatment and health monitoring for several days, following his infection by the COVID-19 virus”, without specifying the place of treatment, and that “the state of health of the President of the Republic is not a cause for concern and is evolving favorably.
Jeune Afrique also specifies that Ghali has been suffering from digestive cancer for several years and has already been hospitalized for this reason in the Saharawi camps of Tindouf in Algeria. According to this media, the Saharawi leader was initially rejected by Germany and finally, after negotiations at the highest level by the Algerian State, was transferred to Spain after the President, Pedro Sánchez, guaranteed that he would not be investigated by the justice system. Ghali would have been transferred to Spain aboard a plane chartered by Algeria and accompanied by a medical team put at his disposal by the Algerian president, Abdelmadjid Tebboune, according to the same source.
After hearing the news, the Sahrawi Association for the Defense of Human Rights (ASADEDH) has filed a writ before the Central Court of Instruction number 5, whose head judge is Santiago Pedraz, for the National Court to investigate the alleged presence of Ghali in Spain and, if confirmed, to take his statement and issue an arrest warrant against him so that he can not “evade the action of international justice”. The National Court reported at the end of 2016 that Ghali was one of the 28 Polisario leaders sued by the aforementioned association for alleged crimes of murder, injury, illegal detention, terrorism, torture and disappearances committed against dissident Sahrawi refugees in Tindouf. For that reason, the Polisario leader renounced to attend, in November 2016, a conference in Catalonia in support of the Saharawi cause.
