Polisario Leader’s 2021 Spain Visit Resurfaces: Ex-Foreign Minister Defends Decision

"Spain welcomed a Spanish citizen, Brahim Ghali, so that he could be treated against Covid. It’s as simple as that," summarized the former minister in an interview with The Diplomat in Spain, relayed by Europa Press. To recall, during the trial against Ghali in this case, the Polisario leader had provided proof of his Spanish nationality.

González Laya avoided answering the question of whether it was her, when she was Minister of Foreign Affairs, or the Moncloa, who had authorized the transfer of Ghali from Algeria and his admission to a hospital in Logroño, considering it "totally useless". "We don’t have to ask ourselves this question when it comes to a Spanish citizen," she affirmed.

Had Morocco been informed of this decision in time? To this question, the former minister replied that "all the appropriate steps in a diplomatic relationship with a neighboring and friendly country have been followed. But I believe that this should not prevent Spain from welcoming a Spanish citizen to be treated in Spain."

On how the crisis with Morocco, born from the welcome of Brahim Ghali in Spain, was managed and which led to her departure from the government in July 2021, González Laya confided that she has "nothing to reproach anyone" in this affair and that she is not going to "rewrite history", assuring that it was "