The State Attorney has once again asked the judge of the so-called Gali case to the file agrees to the investigation that is being carried out on the former Minister of Foreign Affairs Arancha Gonzalez Laya and his chief of staff Camilo Villarino. In his opinion, there are no elements that allow to prove a possible crime of prevarication, cover-up or falsehood on the part of any of the former Government officials.
This is stated in a letter, to which Europa Press has had access, sent yesterday Tuesday by the State lawyer to the head of the Court of Instruction Number 7 of Zaragoza, Judge Rafael Lasala, who is investigating the entry into Spain of the leader of the Polisario Front, Brahim Gali, whenever entered the country on the night of April 18, 2021 without going through border or documentation controls.
In 18 pages, the legal services of the State have insisted that the facts proven in the framework of the investigation “do not constitute a crime”. “It is appropriate, therefore, that an instruction regarding my investigators not be unnecessarily prolonged, due to the unfavorable conditions and consequences that it entails for them,” he pointed out. This, he has underlined, “without prejudice to the eventual continuation or maintenance of the proceedings in relation to others investigated regarding the possible crime of falsehood.”
The Advocacy has reviewed the account of facts that are collected in the case. In this sense, she has indicated that “it is true that Brahim Gali and his son are allowed to enter Spain, without passport control. She has specified, however, that it was done “for humanitarian reasons, legally, without violating any rule and with the legitimate purposes of preserving privacy and security” of the Polisario leader and to “foresee the consequences in international politics” that his presence in Spain could have.
Thus, he has argued that “there was no impediment to the entry into Spanish territory” of Gali and her son, “neither judicially agreed precautionary measures nor arrest or search warrants, and therefore, there could be no intention to violate them.” “Both held the right to enter and reside in our country,” he added.
Neither prevarication nor cover-up
Within the framework of the letter, the State lawyer has assured that the lack of passport control of the Saharawi politician and his son “It does not imply a violation, much less a frontal violation, of the precepts of the Schengen Code“. As he has indicated, the investigated action was protected by that “minimally reasonable technical-legal argumentation” that, in his opinion, “allows prevarication to be excluded.”
In relation to the alleged crime of cover-up, the legal services have indicated that both the former minister and the former chief of staff for Foreign Affairs “were unaware of the existence of legal proceedings in Spain regarding Gali. Hence, it considers that there can be no “intention to avoid them”.
“There is no database on legal proceedings in progress that they could access, nor could they go to all the courts to ask,” he added.
It stands out from Gali’s passport
Regarding the alleged crime of falsehood related to the “lack of coincidence or discrepant data in Brahim Ghali’s documents”, the State Attorney’s Office has assured that neither González Laya nor Villarino had any intervention.
“This representation does not defend Brahim Gali or any other person who may have participated in the search under that identity. and he does not know the reasons why they could have done so, without it being appropriate to speculate here on what they could have been”, the lawyer has influenced.
Thus, it has been unmarked from the documentation provided by the Polisario leader under the name of Mohamed Benbatouche at the San Pedro Hospital in Logroño, where he was hospitalized for a covid-19 picture after landing on a medicalized plane from Algeria the night of the April 18, 2021.
He has noted, however, that “few doubts could be raised about its authenticitywhen it is the issuing State and holder of said passport -Algeria- the one that requests the provision of humanitarian aid directly to the Spanish State and sends Mr. Gali in a State aircraft”. “The investigated could hardly demand a greater guarantee of adveration” , has pointed out the State Attorney’s Office, and has also ruled out that the residence card of Ghali’s son was false.
previous request
Within the framework of the letter, the legal services have recalled that already on September 17, they unsuccessfully claimed the file of the procedure for the former chief of staff of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Camilo Villarino. They understood that “the facts denounced had been sufficiently clarified to verify the non-existence of the typical elements of the crimes of prevarication and concealment and the absence of participation in the possible crime of falsehood that was denounced”.
They have specified that, although they did not appeal the judge’s decision to dismiss their request, they now see it pertinent to resubmit their request. “At this point in the investigation, after the practice of numerous additional proceedings, the same arguments set forth there must be reiterated, having dispelled the slightest doubt that could subsist at that time,” they have pointed out.
In his opinion, the investigation carried out in Zaragoza “has not only confirmed the absence of criminal acts, but has also revealed the unreality of all the theses raised by the complainants.”