Nine years of fighting against Spanish bureaucracy to bring back a son imprisoned in Qatar: “His mother will never abandon him”

Cristina said goodbye to her son in the airport departure terminal one day in July 2015. It was the last time she saw him free.

A few hours later he was arrested in Qatar accused of drug trafficking.

This crime is punishable in the Arab country with life imprisonment.

That was the sentence he received a year and a half later.

Cristina, a fictitious name to protect the identity of both because some of her loved ones do not know her story, she has been fighting since then for the transfer to Spain of her son, who is now 37 years old and is the only prisoner. Spanish in Qatar.

The bureaucratic process could be simple, but she has experienced stops, setbacks and delays that have tested the patience, the stubbornness of this mother and the fragile mental and physical state of the prisoner.

The last obstacle, the call for elections in May 2023, which took the process practically to the starting point.

Cristina and her husband met in Andalusia five decades ago.

Shortly after, they were both offered a job in Qatar and moved to the Arab country in the 1980s.

There they started their family, although her imprisoned son was born in Spain, where he also completed part of his studies.

Although she prefers not to go into details about the events that led her son to be sentenced, she explains that he was involved in threats from drug traffickers.

They left their energy and money on expensive lawyers, but nothing helped: he was sentenced to life imprisonment.

The sentence states that he collaborated to extract bales of hashish from the bottom of the sea.

She does not discuss the sentence or fight to change it, that is already in the past, but she says that she will not stop until she manages to transfer her son to Spain.

Cristina's perseverance began to be tested from the day of her arrest.

Until 2021, Qatar did not have agreements to transfer prisoners to any country, but the celebration of the World Cup motivated a certain openness in its international relations.

That year he signed his first, with Colombia.

Cristina did not care that when her son was convicted there was no treaty and she began to insist on the embassy and consulate in Qatar to open the negotiation process with Spain.

She got it in 2018, when her son had already been in prison for three years.

The pandemic temporarily paralyzed these talks and they resumed in 2021. A spokesperson for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs explains that, according to previous experience in this type of agreement, the negotiations followed an ordinary procedure and within the established times, taking into account that they occurred situations such as “the change of ambassador in Qatar, government elections and the pandemic period.”

In May 2022, Cristina was informed that the agreement was drafted, but it was not until October when the Minister of Justice, Pilar Llop, and the Qatari ambassador signed it.

In December of that year she arrived at the Council of State.

In April 2023 it was debated and approved in the Foreign Commission of the Congress of Deputies and on May 11 by the plenary session.

The next step was ratification in the Senate, but the call for general elections paralyzed the procedures.

Everything was left in limbo.

The woman was in suspense, she did not know what to say to her son, whom she had been informing in detail of the progress that, this time, seemed definitive.

In all these years he has knocked on all doors, complained in all instances and sent letters to all possible political and institutional representatives, including the Spanish Royal House.

He has met with those responsible for prisons in Qatar, with the prosecutor in charge of his son's case, with the Spanish consul and ambassador, with deputies of all political stripes, he has contacted the Ombudsman and the Ministry of Justice and Foreign Affairs, to name some of all the actors who have appeared in the film that his life became since that day in July.

On this tour, he also met Javier Casado, from the +34 Foundation, an organization dedicated to advising and caring for Spanish prisoners imprisoned abroad.

“Getting the transfer agreement drafted and ratified will take a minimum of five years,” he warned her from day one.

“I didn't believe that something so simple could take so much time, but we've been there for six.

The negotiation process until reaching the signature followed the usual times, about five years, but it was in the last part, the ratification in Spain, where it ran aground.

On February 9, Cristina read in the Official Gazette of the Cortes Generales a section that she did not understand, but knew that it referred to the transfer agreement between Qatar and Spain.

She sent it to Javier Casado, who gave him the devastating news: the process returned almost to the starting point, the Foreign Affairs Commission of Congress.

Until now, there has been no information about when the meeting in which that point of the day will be approved will be called again.

"There are times when I can't take it anymore, but then I talk to him and tell him: 'We have to support each other.'

And then I move forward,” she says.

Three weeks ago, Javier and Cristina were in Congress and met with the foreign spokespersons of all the parties.

They got a promise to streamline bureaucracy.

Hana Jalloul, the socialist spokesperson, explains that the situation is the result of a “cluster of circumstances” and points out that “there are deadlines that we cannot skip, but I have spoken with Carlos Floriano (PP) to try to urgently process this matter. ”.

“The normal thing is that since the agreement is signed by the Ministry of Justice and the ambassador, the procedures are completed in six months.

In this case, a year and a half has already passed since that happened, so we are talking about deadlines much higher than usual,” Casado points out.

The head of the foundation explains that the call for the foreign commission is not regular and that is why it is impossible to know when the next one will be held and the signing of the agreement may be included again.

This experience has meant daily wear and tear, Cristina I have had to fight literally every step.

“But he is my son and his mother will never abandon him.

Never,” she points out.

She doesn't say it just to say it.

Cristina has struggled to get her son's MRIs, to be able to bring him books, to enjoy visits again after the pandemic and even to bring him sticks and colored paints with which he builds toy houses.

According to data from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, there are 945 Spaniards imprisoned abroad as of February 1, 2024. According to a study by the +34 Foundation, 57% of them were deprived of liberty, accused of a crime related to drug trafficking, as is the case of Cristina's son.

“I'm tired of giving myself shit,” the woman says in the only outburst she utters in two hours of conversation, but it shows her exhaustion.

“And my son is in very complicated mental conditions.

He has asked me not to tell him anything else about the process of his transfer, that he only let him know that he is going to leave the Qatar prison the day before to tell him to pack his suitcase.”

That is the day that Cristina and her son have fantasized about to the point of desperation.

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