In the Ministry of the Interior they do not leave their astonishment by the dissemination that the Ombudsman is carrying out of his investigation into the tragedy of the Melilla fence. The body led by Ángel Gabilondo has made public this Monday details about the resolution it issued on October 14, in which it concluded that the Interior made 470 illegal returns after the massive jump.
That day he reported it with a simple press release and did not delve further, hiding behind the fact that the investigation was still open. Today, when the investigation has not yet finished, the Ombudsman has released details such as the fact that the Civil Guard threw stones at the immigrants. Something that has caused a great stupor in the department directed by Fernando Grande-Marlaska.
The Ombudsman has had to issue a statement in the middle of the afternoon to clarify that the resolution that several media outlets have collected on what happened on the border perimeter is the letter that was sent on October 14. In it, it is ensured that there were "crushed people", that those who managed to cross the border into Spain were not helped and that Moroccan policemen entered national territory to return migrants "without the minimum legal requirements".
In said resolution, Gabilondo contradicts the version of the Civil Guard on whether the agents saw the avalanche in which the victims accumulated. The Ombudsman, after viewing the images provided, does not find it credible that the agents of the Armed Institute were not aware of the dangerous situation that existed in the courtyard of the border crossing.
Faced with this report that is being "publicized" today according to the Interior, the Ministry has shown "its surprise" at the fact that a document prior to "the meticulous and detailed" allegations made last week by the department that Marlaska led.
For Interior, the details made public show that the Ombudsman "had all the available images of the events from the beginning." Last week, in the midst of the controversy caused by the BBC documentary, both the Prosecutor's Office and the Ombudsman demanded more videos from the Interior, considering that, supposedly, they had not received all of them.
From the Interior they contradict Gabilondo again today. Ministerial sources reiterate that "all the rejections at the border were carried out in accordance with current legislation" and that "the Civil Guard at no time omitted the duty of assistance."
"The fact of disseminating a document that neither includes nor takes into account any of the detailed explanations and allegations made by the Interior generates a clear situation of defenselessness," point out ministerial sources.
Today it has also become known that the head of the Interior will not go –for the moment– to the European Parliament to give explanations about the tragedy of the fence. In the minister's hand was the power to accept or not the invitation to join the debate scheduled for this Thursday on "the incidents" that occurred on the border last June. Through a letter, to which La Vanguardia has had access, Marlaska declines for not justifying that there are currently two open investigations to clarify the facts and he prefers to wait.
In a parallel way, the Table of the Congress yesterday admitted for processing the request for the creation of an investigation commission on the jump to the fence. This is the first procedure. The key –for it to start rolling– will be in the Board of Spokespersons that will presumably meet on Friday. The vote of the PP will be definitive.
