Daughter of a Spanish fisherman killed by Polisario Chief wants justice

Egregious crimes never die out or fall into oblivion. They usually come back to haunt the killers years after they commit them.

the head of the Algeria-backed polisario militias Brahim Ghali is facing serious charges of genocide, rape, murder, terrorism, torture and disappearances. Several Spanish nationals of Sahrawi origin are suing him and the list of the victims keeps growing.

The list includes Ms. Inmaculada, the daughter of a Spanish fisherman who was murdered 40 years ago by head of the Algeria-backed separatist militia.
She recounted her moving story in an interview Tuesday with Spanish newspaper Okdiario.

Brahim Ghali “tortured and killed my father, I want justice”, she told the daily.

In October 1980, Ms. Inmaculada’s father Miguel Aulló Artiles, her uncle and ten other members of the crew were working on Canarian trawler Mencey de Abona. Her mother was 25 and she was 3 years-old at that time. They never saw them again. The Polisario Front claimed responsibility for their disappearance.

Forty years later, his daughter, Inmaculada, was stunned to learn the killer of her father, her uncle and the crew, is currently hosted by Spanish government in a hospital under a false name.

“When I found out that he is here, I cried, suffered an anxiety attack, felt frustrated, beaten, offended (…) I felt that he was laughing at me and at all the victims who have been failed by justice”, she told the newspaper.

A complaint was filed in 2012 but no action has so far been made, says Inmaculada, noting that the victims are still suffering and demanding justice because it is Ghali who gave the order for the kidnapping, murder and torture of her father and the crew.

“I think this is the last chance for Spanish victims to see justice served. We want to see Ghali standing trial, pay for his crimes and ask for forgiveness,” she added in her account.

Only one corpse of the crew of Mencey de Abona was recovered. It was the body of Domingo Quintana, bearing signs of torture as his feet and hands were tied.

 

This means that all the other members of the crew suffered the same fate, said Inmaculada with tears in her eyes. The polisario militia of Ghali “stripped the crew of the Canarian trawler of their clothes and identity documents. They forced them to drink their own urine and eat their own feces. They also beat them and isolated them…,” she told Okdiario daily.

Unfortunately, the horrible crimes, abuse and cruelty of the polisario militias committed against Spanish civilians are overlooked by the Spanish public due to its impulsive sympathy for the fanciful Sahrawi cause.

Miguel Aulló Artiles “was a good man, a good father and a good husband. He was 27 years old and they deprived him of everything. He did not get to see his daughter grow up or his grandson … but as long as I live, I will not rest until justice is served and until Ghali and all his close lieutenants are held accountable”, she vows.