The Sixth Section of the Provincial Court of Cádiz, based in CEUTA, has sentenced nine years of special disqualification for public office to the former government of the Government in Ceuta, Salvadora Mateos, and the former first vice president of the Government of the Autonomous City, Mabel Deu, for a crime of administrative prevarication for the repatriation of 55 minors to Morocco in the year 2021 Superior of Justice of Andalusia.
The court has condemned both nine years of special disqualification for public office, even if they are elective, both state, autonomic or local, as well as for the exercise of their government functions in these same areas.
The case dates back to May 2021, when about 15,000 people. It was the high point of the diplomatic crisis between Spain and Morocco, which pressed at that time to gain support for its plan to take the sovereignty of Western Sahara. Among the people who entered were 1,200 migrants who said they were minors.
The magistrates assert that, “given the difficulties in managing the extraordinary situation”, for the “precariousness of means and resources” to attend to the high number of immigrant minors and the discomfort in public opinion in Ceuta, the first vice president of the Government of Ceuta, made “the appropriate actions” to quickly return the kingdom of Morocco to the minors “without consciously adjusting to any legal procedure.” This return was “commonly agreed with the Government Delegate,” they add. According to the sentence, known on Thursday, Mateos was also “knowledgeable that she did not adjust to any legality”, and that he did not follow what was established by the 2007 Framework Agreement.
The hearing considers that both defendants “were aware of the irregularity and inadmissibility of the return of minors who intended to carry out”, and concludes that “the repatriation decision of the minors, of the way in which it was carried out (…), was not only arbitrary, but manifestly unfair.”
