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Join on Telegram Rabat – Spanish judge Rafael Lasala has issued a search warrant against El Ouali Sidi Mustapha, the son of the Polisario Front’s leader Brahim Ghali.
Spanish news outlet ABC said that the Spanish judge took a legal action against Ghali’s son for “issuing the fake passport with which his father was secretly admitted to the hospital in Logrono.”
In April 2021, Ghali traveled and was admitted to a Spanish hospital under a fake identity and passport with the name of Mohammed Ben Battouch to avoid lawsuits filed against him for different crimes, including war crimes, rape, and kidnapping.
Ghali leads the Polisario Front, a separatist group that challenges Morocco’s territorial integrity and sovereignty over the Western Sahara region.
Ghali’s entry to Spain did not only anger rights activists but also triggered diplomatic tensions between Morocco and Spain.
Morocco’s intelligence services detected Ghali’s presence in Spain last year, a confirmation that allowed the Moroccan government to announce its decision to recall ambassador Karima Benyaich for consultations.
The Moroccan government also responded to Spain’s decision to host Ghali for hospitalization, stressing that the move is a betrayal of the mutual trust between the two countries.
A year of political dialogue yielded reconciliation between the two countries after Spain’s decision to endorse Morocco’s Autonomy Plan as the “most serious and credible” basis to end the dispute over Western Sahara.
Besides politics, lawsuits by activists against Ghali took months until judge Lasala decided to dismiss the separatist group’s leader for lack of evidence.
A year later, judge Lsaala decided to file a lawsuit against Ghali’s son for forging travel documents that his father used for the hospital admission.
Initially, the judge called to testify as a witness amid the lawsuit against his father. The judge believed that Ghali was accompanied by members of the separatist group’s “representation” in Spain.
Following a probe, the judge found that the delegation was “completely unaware of his [Ghali’s] arrival in Spain… The judge considers that only El Ouali could provide that false document, since was the only person who on that trip had permission to access Spanish soil,”ABC reported.
The judge gives Ghali’s son a period of 10 days to appear before the court, the report added, warning that he would be “declared a rebel” if he does not commit to the judge’s order.
“General orders will be issued to locate the aforementioned throughout the national territory,” ABC quoted the judge’s order as saying.
