Gabilondo’s office also points out that Interior would have lied since it has always ensured that it had only expelled 101 Sub-Saharans who were trapped in the ‘inter fences’ space
The Ombudsman concludes that the Ministry of the Interior illegally expelled almost half a thousand immigrants on the day of the Melilla tragedy and that, furthermore, it then lied by hiding the real scale of the large express deportation operation that it carried out with good part of the ‘without papers’ who did manage to reach national territory.
The office led by Ángel Gabilondo has determined that the department led by Fernando Grande-Marlaska repeatedly violated the law with the “hot expulsion” of at least 470 immigrants on June 24 in Melilla, just moments after the tragic jump from the Barrio pass. Chinese in Nador that cost the lives of between 23 and 72 sub-Saharans, according to different sources. This number of express deportees almost quintuples the number recognized by the Interior, which until now claimed that only 101 people had been ‘rejected at the border’, those who were trapped between the two perimeter fences.
The department headed by Ángel Gabilondo, which is still investigating the crushing deaths of the ‘undocumented’ and the actions of the security forces on both sides of the border during that ‘Black Friday’ in which the greatest migratory tragedy took place of the recent history of Spain, affirms that after analyzing the documentation received by the Interior and the Ministry of Inclusion, Social Security and Migration, the institution headed by Fernando Grande Marlaska “rejected 470 people at the border without considering the both national and international legal provisions» for these cases.
It so happens that the PSOE, in opposition, came to appeal these express deportations to the Constitutional Court and promised to prohibit them if they arrived in Moncloa. Never before, however, had any official institution verified an operation of ‘hot expulsions’ of this magnitude.
Interior, which was informed by the Ombudsman of these preliminary conclusions before making them public, was quick this Friday to categorically deny these accusations. “All the rejections at the border that occurred on June 24 on the border perimeter between Melilla and Nador were carried out within the strictest legality,” the minister’s press office said in a statement, in which he also stated that after that massive bloody jump «all the requests for international protection made by the people who entered the national territory are being processed through the legally established channels in procedures with all the guarantees».
The Ministry of the Interior, after the harsh setback of the Ombudsman, did not insist this Friday that Morocco’s action was “proportionate” as it has been doing in parliament and in the mouth of Pedro Sánchez himself. Nor did the department of Marlaska elaborate on the alleged violence exerted by sub-Saharans, although it recalled that 50 Spanish officials were injured. Interior limited itself to pointing out that “the State Security forces and bodies will continue to fulfill their mission of protecting the borders of Spain and the European Union against violent assaults, as they have done up to now.”
“Full judicial control”
Beyond the explanations of the Interior, Gabilondo’s office finds it necessary to remind the department of Grande-Marlaska that the Constitutional Court itself has already established that the “rejection at the border must take into account the application to individualized entries , full judicial control and compliance with international obligations. Some guarantees that, the Ombudsman understands, were not given that June 24. In fact, the images of that day reveal that agents of the Moroccan forces crossed the fence to collaborate with Spanish officials in the ‘instantaneous’ deportation of the dozens of Sub-Saharans who were imprisoned at the gates. Interior and its own owner, despite these images, have been categorically denying that the uniformed men from the neighboring country entered national territory.
The Ombudsman in this first report on what happened that morning at the Chinatown pass insists that the legal reproaches for the ‘hot expulsions’ are only the first of the conclusions, because “the proceedings are not considered concluded and continue open with different administrations. In fact, this first report does not shed any light on the causes, those responsible and the true scale of the tragedy that took place on June 24.
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