National Police unions have demanded the resignation of the Minister of the Interior, Fernando Grande-Marlaska, this Wednesday, considering that he did not heed the internal alert warning of the "extreme risk" of a massive attempt by migrants to enter Ceuta a day before the crisis that erupted on July 30.
The police organizations react to the report that refers to the involvement of Moroccan gendarmes, prepared by the National Center for Immigration and Borders (CENIF) —the intelligence unit attached to the General Commissariat of Foreigners and Borders— and sent to the judge of the National Court María Tardón.
According to this document, CENIF issued an alert 24 hours before the start of the crisis in which, based on open sources, it warned of possible arrivals by swimming and coordinated jumps over the fence, in a scenario marked by the Supreme Court ruling that prohibited returns by sea.
The CENIF report clashes with the official version
The CENIF report, advanced by 'El Español', contradicts what has been maintained so far by Minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska and by the President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, who have defended that there was no data implicating Morocco nor warnings of the magnitude of the avalanche, asserting that no intelligence service anticipated what occurred.
From Brussels, the union Spanish Police Confederation (CEP) has highlighted that this report includes how this unit alerted on July 29 of an extreme risk of coordinated entry by sea the following day, pointing to a planned operation with Moroccan gendarmes and plainclothes police.
"National police did our job, we were up to the circumstances, we alerted in time and form prior to the assault of what was going to happen, but national police are not the Government," said CEP spokesperson David Gutiérrez to the media.
In his opinion, "if it is proven that this report is true," which "is quite presumable," the Minister of the Interior should not remain "a single second longer in charge of the Ministry," emphasizing that his responsibility would not only be to Spanish citizens, "but to the entire European Union."
Gutiérrez has also denounced that, despite the prior warnings, "there were barely a dozen agents" defending the Tarajal border, something he has labeled as "a true barbarity for the safety of Spaniards and the rest of Europeans."
Resignations in chain and accusations of hybrid war
The Jupol union has also demanded this Tuesday dismissals after the content of the CENIF report became known. "The General Directorate of the Police and the Ministry of the Interior were aware of this information before the invasion," it has pointed out in a statement.
It has recalled that they themselves, as a police union, "publicly alerted on July 28 --two days before what they call the 'invasion'-- that the situation in Ceuta was unsustainable," which is why they demand the resignation of Marlaska, the director general of the Police, Francisco Pardo, and the Government delegate in Ceuta, Miguel Ángel Pérez Triano.
Jupol has also revealed that last Friday --August 28-- they "informed" the president of the Autonomous City, Jesús Vivas, of the existence of this CENIF report, "highlighting that the National Police itself had prior information about the possibility of a massive entry of immigrants into Ceuta, posing an extreme risk."
The union has framed these events in a "context of hybrid war" and has insisted that Morocco does not recognize Spanish sovereignty over Ceuta and Melilla, after Marlaska asked the director general of the Police to verify "as soon as possible" the report that attributes to the Moroccan Security Forces and Corps the facilitation of the massive entry.