Spain Seeks to Defuse Tensions with Morocco over Polisario Leader’s Presence

"We have promised to give this person (Brahim Ghali) a humanitarian response. This person was in a critical situation due to his multiple health problems, including a serious case of Covid-19. [...] When he has recovered, he will return home. In the meantime, he is facing a series of complaints and we hope that he will fulfill his obligations to the Spanish justice system," Arancha Gonzalez Laya said on Spanish national radio on Sunday.

Brahim Ghali is expected to appear before the Spanish justice system on June 1st, following a complaint from El Fadel Breika, a dissident from the Polisario Front naturalized as a Spaniard, for "kidnapping, arbitrary detention and torture" in the Tindouf prisons. The investigating judge in Madrid, Santiago Pedraz Gomez, has in the meantime agreed to reopen the case initiated in 2008. A decision that follows a complaint from the Sahrawi Association for the Defense of Human Rights (ASADEH), for alleged crimes such as genocide, murder, injury, illegal detention, terrorism, torture and disappearances. However, he refused to direct precautionary measures against the leader of the Polisario.

On Sunday, the head of Moroccan diplomacy warned Spain against any attempt to exfiltrate Brahim Ghali, who is receiving post-Covid care. "If Spain tries to exfiltrate" the leader of the separatists "it is because it is seeking the aggravation of the crisis, even the rupture," Nasser Bourita said in an interview with Europe 1. This warning seems to have echoes on the other side of the border.