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Fez – Spain’s Minister of the Interior, Fernando Grande-Marlaska, reiterated the importance of cooperation with Morocco in the field of combating crime, following an incident in which two Spanish officers were killed and one injured during a collision chasing down a drug-trafficking vessel in the Babate port near Cadiz, Spain.
The Spanish Civil Guard arrested eight people after a drug trafficker’s boat collided with a patrol ship, killing two officers and wounding two others during the chase, late on Friday, February 9, in the southern port of Barbate.
During a press briefing, Marlaska stated that the authorities in Gibraltar and Morocco did everything necessary so that the drug-traffickers would not be able to escape.
The same minister praised the Guardia Civil Guard, the police, the Gibraltar government and the Moroccan gendarmerie for their role in arresting those involved and preventing their escape.
“I want to highlight the work of customs control and the national police, as well as Morocco and Gibraltar authorities”, Marlaska indicated.
“Yesterday the Guardia Civil acted in a technically flawless and humanly unbeatable way,” he noted, adding that the murders that took place Friday will not go unpunished, and all parties are committed to prevent such events from happening.
Marlaska spoke of “the Spanish government’s determination to confront drug trafficking,” recalling that Spain has invested more than 120 million euros towards this effort.
He also described Morocco as “Spain’s main strategic partner in internal affairs.”
The Spanish Interior made a statement following a meeting between Marlaska and his Moroccan counterpart last January, saying that “the Spanish-Moroccan model of bilateral preventive cooperation constitutes the most relevant and developed example of practical cooperation known between Europe and Africa.”
Marlaska also stressed that this cooperation is crucial at a time when migration pressure is increasing on the southern borders of the European Union and in Morocco.
He thanked his Moroccan counterpart for Morocco’s commitment to fight illegal immigration and human trafficking.
Spanish and Moroccan officials from many other government sectors have met to discuss cooperation in crime prevention efforts.
Last year, Abdellatif Hammouchi, Morocco’s General Director of National Security and Territorial Surveillance (DGSN-DGST) met with his Spanish counterpart Francisco Pardo Piqueras to reiterate their plans to increase cooperation to tackle security threats and trafficking rings.
Read also: Morocco’s DGST Assists Spain to Foil Drug Trafficking Operation, Seizing 1,500 Kilograms of Cocaine
