The Zaragoza Court dismisses the Prosecutor's request to send the 'Ghali case' to Logroño

It is pronounced after last December the Zaragoza court provisionally archived the investigation

MADRID, 1 Feb. (EUROPA PRESS) -

The Provincial Court of Zaragoza has dismissed the request of the Prosecutor's Office to send the so-called 'Ghali case' to a court in Logroño now that the case focuses on the alleged falsification of the passport of the leader of the Polisario Front, Brahim Ghali, and not on his entry into Spanish territory through the Zaragoza Air Base on the night of April 18, 2021 without passing an identification or border control.

In an order, to which Europa Press has had access, the magistrates have supported the decision of the head of the Investigating Court Number 7 of Zaragoza to stay with the investigation and have rejected the argument of the Public Ministry that Judge Rafael Lasala was not the competent to take the case because it contemplated only an alleged crime of documentary falsification.

The decision of the Provincial Court takes place after last December the Zaragoza court agreed to provisionally archive the investigation until it receives the request sent to Algeria to clarify the origin of the passport or until the Security Forces and Bodies of the State finds the whereabouts of Ghali's son, whom he cited as the main person investigated in the case.

The magistrates of the Audiencia de Zaragoza have endorsed the position of Judge Lasala, who in November dismissed the claim of the Public Prosecutor's Office, considering that "the nest of ambiguities and ignorance that this case has become discourages an inhibition."

The investigating judge assured that sending the case to a court in Logroño would be a "risky" action. And he stressed that he could not be inhibited because the possible documentary falsification that was being investigated was "related to the prevarication not ruled out by the Court (Provincial of Zaragoza), since it agreed to the provisional and not free dismissal."

The Prosecutor's Office had asked the magistrate to disqualify himself and refer the proceedings to a court in Logroño so that the latter could investigate the passport with which Ghali was identified - under another name - at the Hospital San Pedro de Logroño, where He was admitted in April 2021 after landing on Spanish soil in a medicalized plane from Algeria.

On that occasion, as has happened now, the two prosecutions involved in the case showed their opposition to the request of the Public Ministry.

At this time, the procedure is provisionally archived, waiting for Algeria to respond to the request in which the judge asked if the number that appears in the passport that was delivered to the Logroño hospital to identify Ghali -but under the name of Mohamed Benbatouche-- corresponds to a file that has been processed and "if they know as certain the identity of the person who is identified there."

The cause is also waiting for the State Security Forces and Corps to find the whereabouts of Ghali's son. Although Judge Lasala initially summoned him as a witness, he finally decided to call him to testify as being investigated as the "indicative author" of the alleged crime of documentary falsification related to the passport that was presented at the hospital. He agreed to this procedure since during an interrogation a worker from the San Pedro de Logroño Hospital assured that the son of the Polisario leader could have been the person who brought the false passport to the health center.

The Investigating Court Number 7 of Zaragoza has focused on the passport and not on Ghali's entry into Spain after the Provincial Court ordered it to close the investigation against the former Minister of Foreign Affairs Arancha González Laya for alleged crimes of prevarication and cover-up as a result of the entry of the Saharawi politician without going through border controls or documentation.