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The Criminal Chamber of the National Court has revoked the free dismissal agreed by judge Santiago Pedraz on July 29, regarding the Polisario Front leader Brahim Ghali in relation to a complaint filed against him by the Saharawi Association for the Defense of Human Rights for crimes of genocide, murder, injuries, illegal detention and terrorism, among others.
Pedraz considered that the crimes attributed to Ghali have prescribed, that the requirements of the crime of genocide are not met and that there is “insufficient” evidence regarding Ghali’s participation in the events denounced.
The Second Criminal Section has partially estimated the appeals filed by the Saharawi Association for the Defense of Human Rights and by Moroccan citizens who prosecute individually and has returned the procedure to the investigator.
The decision is due to a formal error of the judge: has processed the complaint by the norms of the abbreviated procedure instead of opening a summary. The summary rules are those that apply to the main offenses attributed to Ghali.
The Section explains that the case was initiated by virtue of a complaint for alleged crimes of genocide in competition with crimes of murder, injuries, illegal detention, terrorism, torture and disappearances.
Remember that, according to the procedural rules, the investigation of whether these crimes were committed It must be processed as summary and not as preliminary proceedings of abbreviated procedure, channel chosen by Pedraz.
Also remember that, in the summary, the decision to dismiss is “exclusive” of the Chamber of the Penal of the National Court and not of the investigating judge, who must conclude the summary with or without the prosecution of the defendant. In the context of the summary, a possible dismissal would be appealable before the Supreme Court, a body to which the dismissal of an abbreviated procedure never reaches.
Therefore, the Chamber concludes that the central investigating judge lacked the competence to make the decision to dismiss the case for the crimes that are the subject of the complaint and revokes the resolution of the file so that, after accommodation of the procedure -that is, the initiation of a summary-, the judge agrees, “with freedom of judgment”, what he deems appropriate in relation to the prosecution of Ghali and the closure or not of the summary with respect to him, which can be appealed.
The Chamber did not rule on the prosecution of Ghali, contrary to what the complainants claimed. The prosecutor challenged the appeals, holding that in any case the facts are prescribed
The presence of Ghali last April in Spain, where he was treated for Covid, has motivated a legal case in which the former Minister of Foreign Affairs, Arancha González Laya, and his former chief of staff, Camilo Villarino, are being investigated. Judge Rafael Lasala is investigating whether it was accepted that Ghali entered the national territory illegally and / or with false documentation. González Laya is summoned to testify on October 4.
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