Algeria supports the Polisario Front in its campaign against the Moroccan government, which claims sovereignty over Western Sahara – a former Spanish colony.
Polisario Front spokesperson Jalil Mohamed was quoted by Reuters news agency on Wednesday as saying that Ghali had arrived in Algeria, “safe and sound”.
Ghali’s stay in a Spanish hospital, where he was treated for complications arising from Covid-19, led to a diplomatic row between Spain and Morocco. The Moroccan government claims he entered Spain in mid-April using a forged passport.
Then last month, in what was widely seen as a retaliatory political gesture, Moroccan border guards did nothing to stop some 8,000 migrants entering Spain’s tiny North African enclave of Ceuta.
Most were immediately returned to Morocco, but hundreds of unaccompanied minors, who cannot be deported under Spanish law, remain.
Madrid judge rejects detention
Meanwhile on Tuesday, a judge in Madrid rejected a request by prosecutors to detain Brahim Ghali in connection with alleged human rights abuses.
Ghali is the subject of two investigations in Spain. One relates to allegations of torture at Sahrawi refugee camps in Tindouf, a town in western Algeria.
The accusations were made in 2020 by Polisario dissident Fabel Breica, who also holds Spanish nationality. A Spanish court initially rejected the complaint but earlier this year it agreed to reopen the case.
The second investigation relates to allegations of genocide, murder, terrorism, torture and disappearances made in 2009 by the Sahrawi Association for the Defence of Human Rights (ASADEDH), which is based in Spain.
Santiago Pedraz, the Spanish judge handling the case, refused to impose any precautionary measures – such as seizing the Polisario leader's passport as requested by the complainants – arguing there are no "clear indications of his involvement" in the crimes of which he has been accused.
Ghali is also the president of the Sahrawi Democratic Arab Republic, a self-declared state since 1976 which claims authority over the disputed territory of Western Sahara – 80 percent of which is controlled by Morocco, the rest by the Polisario Front.
Rabat considers Ghali to be a war criminal.
