El Fórum Canario Saharaui recibe con satisfacción la imputación del hijo de Ghali y su puesta en busca y captura

In a press release, the Fórum Canario Saharaui highlighted positively the indictment of the son of Brahim Ghali, leader of the Polisario Front, and his arrest. Luali Brahim Brahim Sid El Mustafa was charged as a suspected perpetrator of falsification of documents to the administration of the San Pedro Hospital in Logroño, where his father was treated for a serious respiratory ailment. This unleashed a major diplomatic crisis between Morocco and Spain. The Fórum Canario Saharaui points out that there are more people implicated in the case. 

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

In relation to the recent court order, in which it is agreed that the son of Brahim Ghali, Luali Brahim Sid El Mustafa, will be charged with the offence of falsification of documents to the administration of the San Pedro Hospital in Logroño, this Forum declares the following: 

From this association we would like to express our satisfaction with the decision of Judge Lasala, after the continuous previous subterfuges of some of those potentially responsible for evading their responsibility in this case, with the corresponding and suspicious protection of the State Attorney's Office and even the Public Prosecutor's Office, which last month tried to divert the case from the courts of Zaragoza to those of Logroño in an unusual way, with somewhat strange pretexts, as well as dubious intentions. 

Likewise, the magistrate cites in the order that "initially it was thought that Ghali and his son arrived in Spain accompanied by a good number of people from the Saharawi Delegation in Spain", but that after the written declaration of this delegation that "it was unaware of everything related to this trip", the judge believes that this version is "discredited". In this sense, the Forum believes that the mere affirmation by the Polisario that they knew nothing about this trip does not make it the absolute truth.

At this stage, there are more than enough reasons to distrust the word of these leaders. Especially when they are an interested party, since it is their leader and his own son who are potentially harmed at this stage of the case, given that some of the political representatives who brought it about have been unusually exonerated. It is also hard to believe that Ghali's son alone was capable of handling all the bureaucracy and political-administrative logistics between the two countries to organise a trip of this magnitude and uncertain consequences that could lead to the complex diplomatic situation that degenerated into. We have no doubt that there were many more people involved, and at the highest level, from both the Polisario and the Spanish administration. 

But in any case, we applaud this decision by the judge. If there is someone who is finally indiciously responsible for this crime, and the judge considers this to be the case, they should assume the criminal consequences that may result from it. For this reason, we consider it logical to provisionally dismiss the case, as long as the rogatory commission sent to Algeria by Judge Lasala is not returned. And, by extension, as a consequence of the above, we consider it obvious and natural that the judge in his order should order the Security Forces to try to locate the son of the Polisario Front leader. 

A rogatory commission carried out to clarify whether the accused son of Brahim Ghali falsified the documentation with which the Polisario leader entered Spain and was registered in the hospital in Logroño, and to find out whether the photocopy of the passport presented at the hospital in Logroño corresponds in its form to a passport issued by the Algerian authorities in a regular manner. In short, to find out whether the identity of the person identified there, Mohamed Benbatouche, is known to them to be true. 

Let us hope we are wrong, but we do not expect a positive result from this rogatory commission to clarify Ghali's identification on his arrival in Zaragoza and Logroño, as there is more than one precedent in this regard. A clear example is what happened a few years ago, when Algeria put in a drawer and ignored "sine die" the rogatory commission sent by the Audiencia Nacional, in relation to the case that had been open for years in that court for crimes of genocide, torture and illegal detention allegedly committed by Ghali and other Polisario leaders. This commission was set up with the aim of identifying the defendants in the case, and included a substantial list of 30 questions. 

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, an Algerian judicial obstructionism which does not surprise us and which, once again, we condemn.