Sale a la luz la identidad con la que Brahim Ghali habría entrado a España

The Algerian media The Algeria Times has published the alleged identity under which the controversial leader of the Polisario Front has managed to enter Spain. According to the media, Brahim Ghali used a false name, Mohammed Ben Bettouch of Algerian nationality and 85 years old, to get into a Spanish hospital in La Rioja.

Brahim Ghali, president of the self-proclaimed Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR), aged 73, has been unleashing contradictory reports about his apparent illness and the place where he is hospitalised. According to a spokesman for the SADR delegation in Spain, this lack of information responds to "the patient's privacy".

However, speculation about his admission has not ceased to surface. On the one hand, the magazine Jeune Afrique blamed his hospitalisation on an alleged cancer of the digestive tract, while the SADR presidency reported that his hospitalisation was due to an alleged clinical picture of coronavirus. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs has not confirmed Ghali's illness.

In Algeria, meanwhile, media close to the government have remained silent on Ghali's condition and current location. On the other hand, the Algerian media Algerie Part Plus, known for its exacerbated nationalism and sensationalist reporting, has publicly condemned Algeria's decision to have invested "costly support costing several thousand euros" in the transfer of the Polisario leader to Spain.

In addition, the Moroccan Foreign Affairs and National Defence Committee has informed in a communiqué its rejection of Spain's reception of Ghali, expressing "our regret and our profound astonishment at the act of the Spanish authorities in welcoming on their soil Brahim Ghali, accused of committing war crimes and serious human rights violations".
 

Following Germany's refusal to accept him, the Algerian Prime Minister, Abdelmadjid Tebboune, is said to have intervened to have him admitted to Spain. The acceptance of his hospitalisation was carried out after the commitment of the Spanish government, under the affirmation of Pedro Sánchez, that he would not be tried or investigated by the Audiencia Nacional, where he has different cases open, according to the media eldiario.es.

Brahim Ghali is accused of several alleged crimes of torture, genocide, illegal detentions and disappearances. The complaint was admitted by the head of the court, Pablo Ruiz, against 28 members and leaders of the Polisario Front, including the name of Brahim Ghali. Since then, the case has been shelved on two occasions due to the difficult accessibility of obtaining data on the affiliation and identification of the persons sued. 

After learning of Ghali's protection by Spain, messages attacking the government did not cease to circulate on social networks under the hashtag #España_Protege_Criminal accompanied by the name of the San Jorge hospital in La Rioja, where he is allegedly being admitted.

This event has led to a weakening of relations between Morocco and Spain. Projects in which Spain was going to participate, such as the Moroccan railway modernisation programme or the Strait of Gibraltar link, along with other high-calibre projects, have been frozen. Similarly, the High Level Meeting (HLM) with Morocco has no date and King Mohammed VI could flatly refuse to receive Pedro Sánchez.

In this sense, cooperation on counter-terrorism would undergo some changes related to the exchange of information on radicalised Islamist networks formed by the Moroccan community residing in Spain.