Friday, March 29

The vice president of Ceuta alleges that she fulfilled a “mandate” from the Interior and asks not to be tried for deporting minors


The defense of the first vice president of the Government of Ceuta, Mabel Deu (PP), prosecuted for the expulsion to Morocco in August 2021 of 55 unaccompanied minors outside the provisions of the Immigration Law, has filed an appeal before the Provincial Court of Cádiz against his prosecution in which he alleges that he limited himself to fulfilling “a true mandate” of the Secretary of State for Security of the Ministry of the Interior, and that all his actions were carried out “in compliance with it”. In her opinion, she is suffering an “unnecessary bench sentence” and the case should be closed because she does not deserve criminal charges, reports Europa Press.

The former government delegate in Ceuta investigated for the expulsion of minors points to the Interior: “I received orders”

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Deu’s letter recalls that the unsigned document from the Secretary of State that he received on August 10 “begging” the start of the repatriation of unaccompanied migrant children “by indication of the Minister of the Interior”, although “respecting their rights and interests ”, came from two senior officials, Rafael Pérez and Fernando Grande Marlaska, “magistrates by profession and therefore with extensive legal knowledge”.

The also Minister of the Presidency estimates that this made her understand that the procedure articulated outside Spanish legislation was “fully covered by Law”, for which she collaborated “convinced of the regularity of the process despite its novelty and the surprise which meant the exceptional receptivity of the Moroccan State to implement it”.

The investigating judge of the case opened at the request of the Prosecutor’s Office has appreciated the existence of sufficient evidence to sit Deu and the former Government delegate in Ceuta, Salvadora Mateos, on the bench for an alleged crime of continued administrative prevarication as a necessary cooperator and material author, respectively. According to her indictment, in order to deport the minors, both “knowingly” dispensed with “any procedure and the issuance of the mandatory individualized resolution in accordance with national and international law for the protection of the rights of minors.”

“With their arbitrary proceeding,” the magistrate estimates, “they completely neglected their duty to protect the affected minors that the legislation attributed to them in their respective jurisdictions, putting their physical and moral integrity at risk, causing a materially unfair result, without there is justification for it, not even the exceptional situation”.

Deu’s lawyers, who unsuccessfully unsuccessfully requested that Marlaska be called to testify as a witness, estimate that he did not have any “essential participation” in the “assisted return” of the minors, and that he did not sign more what “merely formal” resolutions. “No matter how willing the counselor and delegate was to carry out the return of minors to Morocco, the decision is adopted at another level and by mutual agreement between two sovereign States,” adds the resource, which warns that there is also “no evidence” that attributes to the ex-delegate, dismissed at the end of October, “the authorship of the decision”.

“Family reunifications”

The letter defends that the existence of “systemic deficiencies” in the protection of Moroccan national minors cannot be affirmed, and equates the returns carried out not with “repatriations”, but with the “family reunifications” processed by the Protection Service to the Childhood of Ceuta.

According to his interpretation, “after efforts at the highest levels in terms of international relations”, what occurred was the “assisted return” of minors to Morocco “from State to State without breaking the chain of protection and custody, in an unprecedented historical milestone to date due to the complex geopolitical circumstances that are well known to all”. Finally, the appeal defends that the expulsion of 55 minors gave, at least in the known cases, an “initially optimal result, producing their effective family reunification in a context free of any apparent risk to their physical or moral integrity.”

In his opinion, the returned minors returned to “structured families” in “decent housing with all the services” and “protective parents who provide them with all the basic livelihoods, having the essential mobile device and Internet connection that today seems vital for the youth”.

At least six of the 55 expelled minors have managed to return to Spanish territory in recent months, and the two who have testified as witnesses in the investigation phase have denied that they wanted to be returned to their country and have assured that “nobody” informed them of your rights.



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