The Spanish Government has released files showing its office in Ceuta was warned by the country’s intelligence service of a planned border assault the day before tens of thousands crossed from Morocco.
By his own account, the warning went no further than the chief of staff of government delegate Miguel Ángel Pérez Triano. Pérez Triano has refused to step down.
At 1.52pm on July 29 an officer of the National Intelligence Centre (CNI) told the chief of staff on WhatsApp that a call was circulating on social media to storm the fence and enter by sea at 8pm the next day. The plan was to exploit Throne Day, when Moroccan security forces would be busy, and two groups spreading it had a combined 180,000 followers, the officer wrote.
The delegation called back at 9.34pm. The content of the 11-minute conversation has not been disclosed.
The same day the CNI told the Guardia Civil it had information on an attempt to swim in and climb the fence, and sent a written warning to Moroccan intelligence. The National Police immigration intelligence unit, CENIF, separately alerted its posts in Ceuta and Melilla that entries by swimming were highly likely on July 30.
The mass entry began shortly before midday on July 30. Spain’s interior ministry has put the number who crossed that day and the next at about 72,000.
On August 25 the delegation said it had never received any report warning of what would happen on July 30. It was responding to Defence Minister Margarita Robles, who had told a parliamentary committee that day that the CNI had passed what it knew to the security forces and the delegation.
Interior Minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska had insisted no report anticipated the events.
At a press conference on the evening of September 9, Pérez Triano said a WhatsApp message to a minor official was neither a report nor an alert. He said he had known nothing of the message or the call.
The Prime Minister’s office took the same line, saying the CNI never issued a formal alert. A body that expected a mass entry would have escalated the matter rather than send an ambiguous WhatsApp, government sources said.
Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez told the RTVE programme Mañaneros 360 the same day that the CNI had not anticipated the scale of the crisis.
Jorge Buxadé, head of the Vox delegation in the European Parliament, called for Sánchez and his cabinet to face the Supreme Court over alleged treason and crimes against the security of the State.
On September 9 the European Commission approved €114.7 million in emergency funding for Spain over Ceuta. Ceuta and Melilla form the European Union’s only land border with Africa.
