Judge

Santiago Pedraz

has agreed to file the complaint of the Saharawi Association for the Defense of Human Rights (Asadeh) against the leader of the Polisario Front Brahim Ghali for the crime of genocide allegedly committed against Moroccan citizens between 1975 and 1990. It is about one of the two complaints that the Polisario leader had open in the National Court.

The magistrate considers that the facts would be prescribed and that the commission of the crime of genocide has not been proven, as well as that the testimonies of the witnesses contradict the claims of the complaint.

The complaint was filed in 2008 against 13 Moroccan soldiers for crimes of genocide, murder, injuries, illegal detention, terrorism, torture and disappearances.

The judge explains in his letter that according to the Penal Code in force at the time of the events, the crimes would be prescribed after having exceeded the 20 years foreseen.

It also recalls that the so-called Penal Code of 73 did not include genocide, which was incorporated in the 1995 reform. In that new Code, the crime was imprescriptible, a characteristic that could not be applied retroactively.

But regardless of the statute of limitations, the judge indicates that the account made by the complaint does not include the requirements of the crime of genocide, such as the alleged "joint intention that guides, according to the complaint, to the murders and torture of dissidents to destroy all or part of the crime. own national group to which they belong ".

"There are no traces of those subgroups into which they divide the Saharawi people according to their geographical location," says Pedraz.

"Contradictions"

Furthermore, the judge agrees with Ghali's defense that there are contradictions in the witness accounts. "The hearing of the statements given is enough to appreciate the contradictions denounced by the defense between the assertions of the complaint regarding the participation of the defendant in the events described and the content of the testimony of the witnesses that he has declared. There is also a manifest insufficiency of relevant details on the circumstances of the place and time of the events, specific details of the participation of the defendant Brahim Ghali, description of the position he held, etc. All of this reduces the credibility of the testimonies given and prevents maintaining the accusation against the defendant, "he says. Pedraz.

The file only reaches Ghali, so the genocide case is still open in the Court against the rest of the defendants.

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