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Spain's Government denies police report implicating Morocco in Ceuta as spokesperson

Spain's Government denies police report implicating Morocco in Ceuta as spokesperson

Spain's Government maintains there is no police report implicating Morocco in the Ceuta border crossing of 30 and 31 July, even as RTVE confirmed access to a…

Spain's Government insists there is «no evidence» linking Moroccan forces to the mass border crossing at Ceuta on 30 and 31 July — even as RTVE confirmed it had accessed a police report pointing in the opposite direction, and even as the Government's own spokesperson admitted she had not read that report before dismissing it publicly. For the tens of thousands of people who crossed the land border and remain in an unresolved situation, the political dispute over a document is also a dispute over what protections and responses they can expect. --- THE CONTEXT --- President Pedro Sánchez set the Government's official position earlier in the week, stating publicly that no evidence existed of Moroccan involvement. Minister Ángel Víctor Torres was named sole coordinator for the crisis. RTVE accessed the contested police report, which describes the crossing as guided by Moroccan gendarmes acting under plainclothes officers with «a purpose other than migration.» EPM's previous coverage documented the congressional debate, viral disinformation and growing opposition pressure over Ceuta, providing the backdrop for this new institutional confrontation. --- THE FACTS --- Interior Minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska sent a formal letter to National Police Director Francisco Pardo asking him to confirm, «if true,» when he had obtained the report attributing the mass crossing to Moroccan security forces. Pardo replied that, after consulting the General Commissariats for Intelligence and for Immigration and Borders, no police report existed attributing the planning or execution of the 30 and 31 July events to Moroccan forces. Pardo justified the report's failure to reach senior officials by saying the National Court judge overseeing the related case had explicitly instructed that it not be shared with higher-ranking commanders. The Government said it was «surprised» by that procedure, given the national security dimension of the events. Spokesperson Elma Sáiz acknowledged in the programme Malas Lenguas on La 1 that she had not read the report at the centre of the dispute, yet maintained that «no evidence exists» of Moroccan involvement, and added that «this Government does not lie, it tells the truth.» Presidency Minister Félix Bolaños called for «maximum caution» until the report was known «in detail» and refused to say what the Government would do if Moroccan involvement were confirmed. Torres, speaking earlier on Las Mañanas de RNE, said that if the report clearly established that involvement, «there would be a responsibility,» and the Government would consider seeking explanations from Morocco. --- THE POSITIONS --- From within the coalition, Culture Minister Ernest Urtasun of Sumar said it was «obvious» that, given the scale of the crossing, the neighbouring country bore «some kind of responsibility by action or omission.» Urtasun also described the situation as a likely «hybrid attack» using vulnerable people to destabilise the progressive Government. Health Minister Mónica García expressed the same view on Las Mañanas de RNE. Torres accused the opposition — PP and Vox — of «partisanship» and of blocking solutions. Moroccan authorities have not issued any public response documented in the source. --- WHAT REMAINS UNKNOWN --- The full text of the police report has not been officially published. The precise terms of the National Court judge's instruction restricting the document's circulation have not been made public. It is not known whether the Government has opened any formal diplomatic channel with Rabat following RTVE's publication. The situation of the people who crossed the border on those two days and remain in Ceuta is not addressed in the source. --- UNANSWERED QUESTIONS --- • What are the exact terms of the judicial instruction that prevented the police report from reaching senior commanders, and does that instruction legally override the director's obligation to inform the Interior Minister on national security matters? • Why has the Government not requested that the report be officially released, given that RTVE already accessed it? • How many of the people who crossed the border on 30 and 31 July remain in Ceuta without an administrative resolution of their status? --- EPM ANALYSIS --- The most consequential fact of this episode is not the report itself but the spokesperson's admission that she had not read it before publicly denying its contents. That sequence — deny, admit ignorance, deny again — damages institutional credibility in a way that falls hardest on people waiting for concrete answers, whether they live in Ceuta or crossed its border. The judicial instruction cited by Pardo is the single factual pivot on which the Government's entire account rests, and it has not been independently verified. EPM has tracked this crisis across several editions; the pattern of delayed, contradictory disclosures is now a story in its own right. 📌 📌 EPM Take: In EPM's view, the Sánchez Government has now made a politically costly choice visible to anyone paying attention: it has decided that protecting the relationship with Rabat matters more than resolving the factual dispute over what happened on those two days. That is a legitimate foreign-policy calculation, but it comes at a price — the credibility of officials who deny documents they have not read, in a city whose residents deserve direct answers. The judicial-instruction defence may be legally sound; it has not yet been tested in public. Until it is, the gap between what RTVE published and what the Government asserts remains open and consequential.
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