Fórum Canario Saharaui welcomes the judicial refusal to transfer Ghali's case to Logroño

The Fórum Canario Saharaui has expressed its total satisfaction at the refusal of the Provincial Court of Zaragoza to transfer the case of Brahim Ghali, leader of the Polisario Front, to Logroño. The Court again rejected the request of the Prosecutor's Office to send the case involving the Polisario leader to the courts of Logroño. Especially now that the case is centred on the crime of forgery of the Polisario Front leader's passport, a question which even affects his son.

The official statement of the Fórum Canario Saharaui is reproduced below:

With regard to the news reported by different media, in which they reported the resolution of the appeal presented by the Public Prosecutor's Office of Zaragoza to the Provincial Court, where for the second time in three months they tried to suspiciously dodge the case against Brahim Ghali by referring it to the courts of Logroño, this Forum declares the following:

"The Fórum Canario Saharaui expresses its satisfaction at the judicial refusal to transfer the case of Ghali to Logroño".

The Forum expresses its satisfaction at the decision of the Provincial Court of Zaragoza to again reject the request of the Public Prosecutor to send the case to the courts of Logroño. A request, moreover, made with unusual and suspicious insistence. Especially now that it focuses on the crime of forgery of the passport of the leader of the Polisario Front, Brahim Ghali, whose son is wanted and charged for this fact.

In this sense, we once again support the position of the private prosecution, through its lawyer Antonio Urdiales, opposing this request by affirming that "the falsification of the passport is a crime related to prevarication, a fact that already led the Logroño Court to its inhibition in June 2021 in favour of the judge Rafael Lasala, of Zaragoza, considering that he should maintain his competence".

It is for this reason that the Zaragoza Court now endorses Lasala himself, considering that the possible prevarication that led to the opening of this case, in relation to Ghali's irregular entry into the country, is "directly and intimately related" to the current proceedings to clarify the crime of false documentation at the time of the search at the San Pedro Hospital in Logroño. It is this connection that has led the Court to take this decision, which we applaud.

In our opinion, all these attempts are somewhat suspicious and we believe that they are covert manoeuvres with the aim of leading to the final dismissal of the case and the exoneration of Ghali, in a matter that was sufficiently opaque and murky for the corresponding responsibilities to be established, as Judge Lasala intends.

It was not in vain that the same public prosecutor's office pushed for the case against former minister González Laya in the Ghali case to be closed, with arguments as lazy as the fact that Ghali "did not appear in the Interpol database or in any Spanish judicial body as a person wanted for committing criminal acts". This is completely untrue, since it is common knowledge that at the time he had two cases pending before the Audiencia Nacional. Thus, we can see how, unfortunately, the Zaragoza Prosecutor's Office continues with its frivolous and biased attitude in everything related to this case.

Finally, we would like to recall that while Ghali's son continues to be sought and captured because of the bizarre episode that brought the Polisario leader to Spain, the Polisario have just held their umpteenth congress in Tindouf where, once again, the only solution they offer is war to the detriment of any negotiated solution such as the proposal for autonomy. A solution that a growing number of Sahrawi dissidents are desperately calling for, in order to get them out of the eternal journey to nowhere in which they have been immersed for decades.

A journey from which the most affected are the people living in the Tindouf camps, cantoned and abandoned sine die. A week-long congress where only empty slogans, exacerbated propaganda, false hopes, deception and, above all, war were heard. An eternal flight forward that will only add to the tragedy already suffered by its population.