Eduardo González
The Minister of Foreign Affairs, Arancha González Laya, assured yesterday that the Government has given the “appropriate explanations” to Morocco on the “humanitarian reasons” that led to the hospital admission of Brahim Ghali in Spain and assured that in the event that the Spanish Justice summons the leader of the Polisario Front for the cases opened against him, “he will appear before the Justice and it will not be the Spanish Government who will interpose itself”.
“Spain’s position on Morocco has not changed”, Gonzalez Laya assured during a joint press conference with her Serbian counterpart, Nikola Selakovic, at the ministerial headquarters of the Palacio de Viana, in Madrid. “The relationship with Morocco is one of friendship, cooperation and close partnership”, and the Spanish government “cares about maintaining good relations with all its neighbors and, obviously, maintaining extraordinary relations with a neighbor and partner like Morocco”, she continued.
“We have given timely explanations to Morocco about the circumstances that led us to welcome Ghali in Spain for strictly humanitarian reasons; it was for humanitarian reasons and when the reasons conclude, Ghali will leave Spain”, said Gonzalez Laya in relation to the admission of the leader of the Polisario Front in the San Pedro Hospital in Logroño. The Moroccan Minister of Foreign Affairs, Naser Burita, declared last week to Efe news agency that Rabat is still waiting for “a satisfactory and convincing answer” from the Spanish Government and wondered if Spain “wishes to sacrifice its bilateral relationship” to defend “a rapist who tolerated slavery, torture, war crimes, child soldiers and genocide”.
On the other hand, and in relation to the case opened by the National Court against Ghali for alleged human rights violations against dissident Saharawi refugees in Tindouf, the minister assured that “Justice in Spain is independent and the government is exquisitely respectful of the actions of Justice”. “Justice will do what it has to do and the Government will fully respect it, as it cannot be otherwise, and if Justice understands that Ghali has to appear before Justice, Ghali will appear before Justice, and it will not be the Spanish Government who will interpose itself”, she concluded.
Precisely, Judge Santiago Pedraz, of the National Court, has summoned Brahim Ghali to appear today to testify as a defendant in a crime of “genocide and torture” in Tindouf, according to legal sources. Ghali, 73, 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 allegedly to evade the complaint of the National Court. According to the same media, Brahim Ghali – who suffers from digestive cancer – 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.
