Spanish Court Asked to Reveal Intelligence Reports on Morocco’s Role in Sahrawi Leader Case

11 June 2022 – byPrince@Bladi · 2 min read

Brahim Ghali’s lawyer, Manuel Ollé, has asked the National High Court to provide him with the two reports from the Spanish intelligence services (CNI) from May and June 2021, in which it is allegedly indicated that the complaints filed against the Sahrawi leader for alleged crimes of torture and kidnapping come from Moroccan intelligence services.

The legal procedure against Brahim Ghali was opened by the complaint of Fadel Breica, a Sahrawi dissident, arrested in 2019 in Tindouf, who claimed to have been tortured by the Polisario Front. According to the two "confidential reports" of the CNI, dated May 18 and June 24, 2021, to which Publico had access, "the Moroccan intelligence services have activated a double judicial and media strategy" in order to "harass" Ghali and provoke his arrest, and to "put pressure on the Spanish government to change its position on the Sahara in favor of Morocco".

To read: Spanish Court Closes Case on Polisario Leader’s Controversial Entry, Easing Diplomatic Tensions

The two reports were written in the midst of the diplomatic crisis between Morocco and Spain. In the first, dated May 24, 2021, the CNI informed President Pedro Sanchez and several members of the Executive that "Breica was a member of the Sahrawi Initiative for Change (ISC) and later joined the Sahrawi Movement for Peace (MSP), that he "probably moved to Tindouf in 2019 on the instructions of Morocco in order to provoke the arrest of the Polisario Front leader". Allegations rejected by Breica and Hach Ahmed, president of the MSP, denying having any relations with the Moroccan intelligence services.

To read: Polisario Leader Slams Spain’s Shift on Western Sahara Autonomy Plan

"Morocco’s strategic objective was to influence the media to turn public opinion in its favor and discredit the Polisario Front," the second report of June 2021 states, which alerted the Spanish government to the Moroccan government’s intentions to use Ghali’s entry to put pressure on it to adopt a more favorable position in the Sahara conflict. In a letter dated March 14, 2022 and made public on March 18 by Morocco, the Spanish government expressed to King Mohammed VI Spain’s support for Morocco’s autonomy plan for the Sahara, considered "the most serious, credible and realistic basis for resolving the conflict".

Category: Spain

Keywords:

Spain Rights and Justice Tindouf Brahim Ghali