Judge María Tardón has taken a step to assume the investigation in the National Court regarding how the Government delegate in Ceuta acted in relation to the massive entry of immigrants at the end of July.
The magistrate indicates in a resolution that she has learned that Court 6 of the courts of the autonomous city has opened proceedings following a complaint against Miguel Ángel Pérez Triano. The instructor agrees to send to that court in Ceuta the order in which she agreed to assume in the National Court the investigation into the massive entry “so that, in view of it, it assesses the pertinence of refraining from its actions in favor of this Court, if these were behaviors included in the procedure being followed here”.
It is not a direct request for recusal, but it clearly reflects Judge Tardón’s intention to assume that investigation. Everything points to this happening, given that the Prosecutor’s Office of the Autonomous City has already spoken before Court 6 asking it to recuse itself in favor of the National Court.
Court 6 of Ceuta opened proceedings after receiving a complaint from Hazte Oír to investigate whether the government delegate committed crimes of omission of the duty to prosecute crimes, denial of assistance, and prevarication by omission, after having received warnings from the National Intelligence Center (CNI).
After receiving a report on the facts prepared by the National Immigration and Borders Center (Cenif), the judge ruled that the jurisdiction corresponded to the National Court, because it was a serious attack against the territorial integrity of Spain.
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“We are facing an allegedly criminal conduct committed abroad that has seriously attacked the territorial integrity of Spain, which is guaranteed in Article 2 of the Constitution, using for this the massive entry into our country, to which irregular migratory flows have joined that have seriously affected the life and rights of the citizens of Ceuta,” states the resolution issued in the case opened after a complaint by Iustitia Europa.
The same order indicated that the investigation would not be limited to seeking the alleged instigators of the wave of immigrants, but would extend to how the Spanish authorities acted with the information they had to prevent what happened, including the death of at least 83 people by drowning or crushing on the Spanish side of the border.
“All actions taking place on Spanish territory related to such massive and irregular entry of tens of thousands of immigrants, violating the Spanish border […], such as the articulation of adequate response means in Spanish territory, in relation to the information and alerts of its possible occurrence, and the impact that these actions may have had on the effects produced by this massive entry, must be investigated.”
The Government delegate is, for now, the most directly implicated in this line of investigation, after his Chief of Staff resigned last week stating that he had passed on the alerts issued by the CNI.
