There is an investigation into Morocco’s role in the Ceuta crisis

Madrid. María Tardón, a judge at the Audiencia Nacional, has decided to officially open an investigation into the entry of over 70,000 migrants into Ceuta on 30 and 31 July. The judge was the recipient of the police report that caused considerable embarrassment to the Sánchez government, as it implicated the Moroccan security forces as being responsible for the ‘invasion’. Ultimately, the government sought to defuse the report by discrediting what it described as erroneous interpretations by the newspapers.

Yet the judge demonstrates that she takes this interpretation very seriously. In the order initiating the preliminary investigation, she writes that “from the territory of the Kingdom of Morocco, actions were carried out that were clearly and undoubtedly favourable to the trial”, a trial defined as “planned”, since there were “actions that were not accidental, occasional or spontaneous”. These words are increasingly embarrassing for a government which, until now – for purely political and diplomatic reasons that the public would like to see clarified – has categorically ruled out any involvement by the Moroccan state, or at least by sections of it.

There is perhaps a hint of sarcasm when the judge echoes Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez’s words to support the investigative theory that Sánchez himself does not favour: “A preliminary examination of the facts suggests that the offence was committed with the intention of undermining the State by violating its territorial integrity, as the Prime Minister rightly pointed out during his visit to Ceuta”. The other major question remains open: that of the role of the secret services. Did they warn of the imminent danger or not? Yesterday, the Council of Ministers approved the declassification of all documents relating to Ceuta. By today, they will already be in the newsrooms, but in the meantime, thanks to an exclusive by El Confidencial, Spanish journalists discovered yesterday that the Ministry of the Interior was categorising them according to their political leanings. Yet another scandal to be defused.