As the diplomatic crisis continues between Morocco and Spain, the leader of the Polisario Front, the independent Sarhaoui Brahim Ghali, ill with Covid-19 and cancer, will be heard this Tuesday, June 1, by the judge of the ‘National Audience Santiago Pedraz. He will be linked to two complaints against him in Spain. The character is at the heart of the dispute between Rabat and Madrid.
as reported from Madrid, Francois Musseau
The hearing will take place via video conference. From the national hearing in Madrid, Judge Santiago Pedraz will question Brahim Ghali in connection with two complaints. The first, filed by the Sahrawi Association for the Defense of Human Rights, for alleged acts of genocide and torture from 2009 against Sahrawi citizens living around the Tinduf camps, on Algeria’s side.
The second complaint is the fact that Fabel Breica, of Spanish nationality but of Sahrawi origin, accuses him of illegal detention, torture and harm to humanity, a crime in which Brahim Ghali is alleged to be the author in April 2019.
From a legal source, the hearing of the leader of the Polisario Front should not end with a preventive imprisonment. The man, ill, is at the center of a diplomatic conflict dating back to mid-April when Madrid secretly admitted the Sahrawi soldier. Rabat was quick to learn about it and, as a retaliatory measure, allowed about 8,000 “undocumented” migrants to join the Spanish enclave of Ceuta May 17
Since, The relationship between Madrid and Rabat is still very tense and according to the two countries, it goes beyond the only case of Brahim Ghali and covers the whole issue of Western Sahara, occupied by Morocco since 1976 and of which the Polisario Front claims complete independence.
Read also: Hospitalization of Brahim Ghali, head of Polisario in Spain: Morocco angry
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