© Provided by Yabiladi
The president of the court of instruction number 7 of Zaragoza validated the request for a rogatory commission going to Algeria to investigate the passport of Brahim Ghali. She must inquire with the Algerian authorities regarding the passport that the leader of the Polisario Front had presented to the San Pedro hospital in Logroño, where he was admitted in April 2021.
According to the order, viewed by Europa Press, Judge Rafael Lasala accepted the prosecutor’s request to travel to Algiers to find out if his authorities issued the passport under investigation in Zaragoza for false document. The Spanish justice wants to know if the number appearing on the document corresponds to a file which has been processed and “if the identity of the person is certain”. The Spanish agency recalls that according to said travel document, Mohamed Benbatouche, the false name with which Ghali would have presented himself, was actually born on September 19, 1950. However, the Algerian authorities issued another document in the name of Brahim Ghali Mustapha, who was born on August 18, 1949.
The investigating judge recalled that Spain and Algeria had signed in 2002 a mutual legal assistance agreement which established the “commitment” of the two parties to provide mutual support. He therefore sent the Algerian authorities a photocopy of Ghali’s passport to help shed light on the facts under investigation.
The decision to put this letter rogatory comes following the judge has accepted, this summerto prolong the investigation for six months and redirect it to the crime of falsification of documents for the passport that Ghali used to identify himself at the San Pedro hospital in Logroño.
The magistrate took this decision following the Provincial Court of Zaragoza ordered the dismissal of the investigation carried out once morest the former Minister of Foreign Affairs Arancha González Laya for alleged crimes of prevarication and concealment following the entry of the Secretary General of the Polisario in Spain without going through border controls.
Europa Press notes that the judge will continue the proceedings relating to the crime of falsification of documents, recalling that last April he asked the Polisario Front delegation in Spain to provide him with the current address of Luali Brahim Sid El Mustafa, son of Brahim Ghali, so that he can testify.
