• The victims: Family members of the drowned in El Tarajal: "We only ask the Prosecutor's Office to defend the victims"
  • Newspaper archive: The judge orders the civil guards investigated for the death of 15 migrants in Ceuta on February 6, 2014
  • Reactions. Indignation of the guards by the trial of El Tarajal: "They are heads of Turkish, the State is responsible"

The Prosecutor's Office of Ceuta prepares an appeal against the decision taken by the magistrate of Court Number 6 of Ceuta that on September 25 prosecuted 16 Civil Guard agents for crimes of reckless manslaughter and denial of aid for the death of 15 immigrants in waters near the ceutí beach of Tarajal.

According to tax sources reported to EL MUNDO, the Public Prosecutor's Office understands that the order of prosecution is "extremely unbelievable" since it is not specified what criminal acts are attributed to each of the 16 members of the Armed Institute who are tried to prosecute for The tragedy of Tarajal. In addition, the Prosecutor's Office considers that, after the instruction carried out in recent years, there is not enough evidence to sit agents on the bench.

The chief prosecutor of Ceuta has already informed the State Attorney General of his intention to appeal this order, giving the department directed by María José Segarra a green light for the filing of said appeal. The deadline for submitting the same expiration date for the Fiscal Ministry next Tuesday, according to the sources consulted.

On February 6, 2014, various agents of the Civil Guard fired rubber balls and smoke boats, "with a deterrent purpose", from the Ceuta beach of Tarajal to the sea in which a number of people tried to reach Ceuta by swimming and who were forced to return to Morocco. There were 15 dead and several injured immigrants.

The judge concluded in the order to transform the previous proceedings in an abbreviated procedure that the agents of the Civil Guard investigated used «dispersal material to deter them, firing rubber balls and smoke boats into the sea where they swam, in defense of the borders Spanish. This action could contribute, co-causally, by way of imprudence, to death by drowning.

In addition, the instructor decided to send the agents of the Armed Institute to the bench of the accused, clinging to the "possible lack of proportionality of the action deployed" by the Civil Guard.

Along with the appeal prepared by the Prosecutor's Office of Ceuta, another legal services of the Government have already been presented. In it, the State Advocacy argued that "the deaths did not occur in Spain" so the cause is not under Spanish jurisdiction. In addition, he insisted that the instruction had become a "kind of generic investigation of facts that are impossible to attribute to any of the people who are accused."

The state lawyer stressed that "no action by the Spanish force was deployed on the Moroccan side of the sea" and "swimmers who reached the Spanish coast were helped by the agents and were rejected at the border without causing injuries."

For its part, the Union of Civil Guard Officers, on behalf of one of the defendants, requests in its appeal the annulment of the order of prosecution for the multiple "contradictions" that appear therein. He stressed that the agents acted "in defense of Spanish borders."

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Know more

  • Ceuta
  • Civil Guard
  • Morocco
  • Spain
  • immigration

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