Brahim Ghali planning to flee Spain after recovery, Polisario second in command says

Polisario’s second in command Salem Lesbir shamelessly said that the separatists’ leader Brahim Ghali, who entered Spain secretly in April for medical care after he tested positive for COVID-19, will flee the European country and would not respond to the Spanish justice summons.

 

Lesbir made the revelation in an interview with Alejandro Entrambasaguas, an investigative journalist working for Spanish Okdiario newspaper.

According to Okdiario, the Polisario N°2 said that Ghali plans to escape and that in 10 days, when he recovers, he will leave Spain without going before the judge.

This umpteenth provocation comes as Spanish Foreign Minister Arancha Gonzalez Laya announced on Sunday that Brahim Ghali must stand trial for the legal charges against him before leaving Spain.

 

Spain had let in the Polisario leader under a fake identity with an Algerian passport bearing the name of Mohamed Ben Battouch, a move that triggered a major diplomatic and political crisis with Morocco, as the separatist movement is waging war against the North African Kingdom with the financial, diplomatic and logistical support of Algeria.

As if this was not enough, Salem Lesbir flew in Spain and visited, unbothered, Brahim Ghali who is hospitalized in Logroño (Zaragoza).

Once again, Spain seems to challenge Morocco by allowing a senior member of the Polisario militia to enter its territory in the midst of the storm under a “fallacious humanitarian alibi”, a move that risks aggravating the tensions between Rabat and Madrid.

Madrid’s reckless behavior, to say the least, confirms Morocco’s position which, through the voice of its Minister of Foreign Affairs, denounced from the outset the entry in Spain of Brahim Ghali with forged documents and under a usurped identity without even informing the Kingdom, while this individual is being prosecuted by Spanish justice in cases of rape of a Spanish citizen, torture, kidnapping and terrorism, in particular by a Canarian association of victims of terrorism, and by one of his victims, Fadel Breika, who sued him for torture and kidnapping.

Moroccan foreign Minister Nasser Bourita, in interviews Sunday with LCI channel and Europe 1 radio, warned Europe about the maneuvers of Madrid, which is seeking to Europeanize a strictly bilateral crisis through the migration issue.

 

The Moroccan official insisted that the “humanitarian grounds” invoked by Madrid do not mean maneuvering behind the back of a partner. “Humanitarian aid for a neighboring country does not mean changing passports and bringing a person into European space. Humanitarianism does not mean forgetting the rights of Spanish victims and deactivating Spanish justice. This is the root of the problem.”