Morocco encouraged a “judicial and media” offensive against the Polisario leader, according to the CNI

During the diplomatic crisis between Spain and Morocco over the reception of the Polisario Front leader, Brahim Gali, the Moroccan intelligence services activated a double “judicial and media” strategy in order to “harass” Gali and “hinder his mobility”, as well as "create a state of opinion in the [Spanish] press related to their interests."

This is stated in a “reserved” report from the National Intelligence Center (CNI) to which EL PAÍS has had access.

The document, dated June 24 of last year, assures that Rabat used "many resources, including economic ones", in "reactivating all the complaints and lawsuits" filed before the Spanish justice system against the Polisario Front and its leader, "in addition to other new [complaints]”,

and in "mobilizing the Moroccan colony" to demonstrate against the decision to welcome Gali in a hospital in Logroño after contracting covid.

The objective was "to put pressure on the Government of Spain to achieve a favorable position for Morocco in the dispute over Western Sahara", the report concludes.

The document includes an annex with the identity of people and organizations alleged collaborators in Spain of the General Directorate of Studies and Documentation (DGED for its acronym in French), the foreign intelligence service dependent on the Moroccan armed forces.

Among them he cites the Saharawi Association for the Defense of Human Rights (ASADEDH), which in 2007 denounced Gali and other leaders of the Polisario Front for genocide.

The CNI assures that this association “is directed by the DGED through its president, Ramdan Mesaud Larbi”.

He denies it "flatly" to this newspaper.

The report also cites the president of the Canarian Association of Victims of Terrorism (Acavite), Lucia Jiménez, who, according to the report, allegedly requested, in 2012,

“Financial aid to Morocco to denounce the Polisario Front for the crimes committed against Spaniards between 1973 and 1988″.

Jiménez rejects the accusations: “Acavite has never received money from Morocco […].

It is an indecent and harmful intoxication.”

More information

Robles takes refuge in the CNI law so as not to reveal that it warned that Morocco wanted to force a change on the Sahara

Jadiyetu Mohamud Mohamed also appears on the list, who in April 2021 requested the reopening of two complaints that he had filed in 2013 and 2018 against Gali for rape.

Both had been dismissed by the National Court.

The CNI notes that the DGED presumably took care of paying a lawyer and the "costs of stay, assistance and dissemination of the case" in the press.

Jadiyetu Mohamud claims that his income comes from caring for the elderly and children.

In addition, Rachad Andaloussi is mentioned, a citizen of Moroccan origin who, together with the Valencian PP deputy Juan Vicente Pérez Aras, denounced Gali in a Logroño court.

In May 2021, Andaloussi appeared as a popular accusation in another case of the National Court.

The CNI affirms that the DGED allegedly paid the 6,000 euros that the judge then asked Andaloussi as bail.

According to the report, Moroccan intelligence was also behind the complaint filed in May 2021 by Mourad Elajouti, a Moroccan lawyer and president of the Moroccan Lawyers Club.

The National High Court inadmitted it as it did not appreciate evidence of a crime.

Elajouti assures that this organization is "independent" and denies links with the intelligence services of his country.

Together with him, he cites the Manos Limpias pseudo-union, whose president, the lawyer and former far-right politician Miguel Bernad, has been identified as a "collaborator" with the Moroccan secret services, at least since 2015. Bernard denies having "the slightest relationship" with the Moroccan authorities. Rabat.

Another of those mentioned is Fadel Breica, a member of the Saharawi Movement for Peace, an organization founded by former Polisario official Hach Ahmed, which the CNI calls a "screen" for the Moroccan secret services.

In 2019, Breica denounced having been tortured in the Tindouf refugee camps (Algeria).

The CNI points out that he "probably" made that trip "following instructions from Morocco to provoke the polisaria leadership and force his arrest."

The document states that Breica's “only income” comes from the DGED.

Both Breica and Ahmed deny any relationship with the DGED.

The report mentions Pedro Altamirano, a citizen of Malaga who, according to the CNI, "has been collaborating with the Moroccan intelligence services for years, motivated by economic interest and a desire for notoriety."

On April 24 of last year, he reported receiving death threats from the Polisario Front.

Altamirano dismisses the report as "surrealist" and explains that he has always considered Morocco his "second homeland".

The CNI also includes Antonio Urdiales, the lawyer who, with his complaint before a Zaragoza court, obtained charges for Gali's entry into Spain from, among others, the former Minister of Foreign Affairs Arancha González Laya, finally archived on May 26. .

The report notes that "her motivations seem personal."

Urdiales assures that "neither have I asked for nor have I received a single euro from the Moroccan government or individuals."

The report concludes that Rabat's double strategy, judicial and media, did not give the expected results.

The document adds that "the use of the judicial route will continue, since [the Moroccan intelligence services] will continue to promote new complaints and appeal judicial decisions to keep the cases open" with the aim of "having tools to manipulate the media and put pressure on the government.

Three ministers decline to rule on the documents

The ministers of the Presidency, Félix Bolaños;

Defense, Margarita Robles;

and Interior, Fernando Grande-Marlaska, on Monday avoided commenting on the content of the CNI report that, on May 18 of last year, concluded that the massive influx of immigrants into Ceuta the day before was part of the "pressure" strategy of Rabat for Spain to modify its position of neutrality in the Western Sahara conflict.

Bolaños and Robles have hidden behind the confidential nature of these documents.

"All the reports issued by the National Intelligence Center are secret by law and, therefore, I cannot make any comment about it," said Bolaños.

A few hours earlier, Robles, in an interview on Telecinco, had stressed the same idea and defended the "serious and rigorous" work of the CNI.

For his part, Grande-Marlaska,

In an act in Santiago de Compostela, he defended the relationship with Rabat: "Relations with Morocco are one of extremely important, strategic loyalty, reliability and fraternity".

Members of his department will be part of the interministerial delegation of Spain that will meet this Tuesday, in Madrid, with Moroccan representatives to set "the calendar for the completion of the process of normalizing the movement of people and goods" through the borders of Ceuta and Melilla .  

Grande-Marlaska and Robles have also avoided pointing fingers at the Alaouite kingdom in the case of the spying on the mobile phones of members of the Government with the Pegasus computer program —including the terminals of both and that of the president, Pedro Sánchez— on days coinciding with the Ceuta crisis and is being investigated by the National High Court.

The Minister of Defense has assured that in these cases it is very difficult to verify the authorship of these attacks and she has recalled that making accusations "without evidence" should be avoided.

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