Spain’s Interior Minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska pleaded ignorance Tuesday saying his office received no prior report from the nation’s intelligence institutions warning of last week’s massive illegal migrant invasion of Ceuta.
Marlaska, however, did confirm that a staggering amount of 72,000 migrants swarmed the Spanish enclave during last week’s chaotic events — far more than the initial 49,000-60,000 estimates disclosed by the nation’s authorities in recent days.
The Spanish Interior Minister delivered his remarks after participating at a video conference of European Union Interior Ministers on Tuesday addressing last week’s migrant invasion of Ceuta.
Speaking to reporters after the meeting, Marlaska affirmed that the Spanish Interior Minister received no reports from the country’s National Intelligence Centre (CNI) warning of the invasion. The Minister, however, also reiterated his “trust” and “recognition” of the Spanish intelligence services and reportedly ruled out possible dismissals over the matter, stressing, “many things happen, and there does not necessarily have to be any liability involved.”
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According to the Spanish public broadcaster RTVE, Marlaska described last week’s events not as an invasion, but as an “extraordinary and exceptional” event “orchestrated by criminal rings and networks, using a self-serving interpretation of the Supreme Court ruling as a pretext.”
“There was no report or warning of anything resembling what has happened, nor anything like what occurred in 2021, when 10,000 people entered,” Marlaska said, adding that had an incident like last week’s been known, “there would have been communication to the highest levels.”
Per RTVE, Marlaska affirmed that no other European Union country issued a warning either.
“Another security agency in another E.U. country could also have foreseen this; we are all involved. Anything that happens in the E.U. has repercussions for the rest,” the Minister reportedly affirmed.
As Breitbart News reported, Spanish authorities point to a June Supreme Court ruling as the spark of last week’s migrant invasion.
Spain’s Minister of the Interior, Fernando Grande-Marlaska, claims total ignorance of any warnings ahead of the mass invasion of some 70,000 illegal migrants into the enclave of Ceuta last week. (A. Perez Meca/Europa Press via Getty Images)
The controversial ruling prohibited law enforcement officials from conducing pushbacks of illegal migrants as sea — effectively causing a legal loophole that tens of thousands of migrants sought to exploit to make their way into Spanish territory.
The Spanish outlet El Español reports that Interior Minister Marlaska affirmed during Tuesday’s press conference that “over 70,000” of the some 72,000 migrants that swarmed Ceuta last week have allegedly left the Spanish North African enclave.
“Those who do not have the right to remain will be expelled in strict compliance with Spanish law,” Marlaska affirmed to reporters.
Contrary to Minister Marlaska’s latest assertions unnamed sources from the Spanish National Intelligence Centre reportedly affirmed to the television channel Antena 3 on Monday that CNI had allegedly issued “several reports” to the Interior Ministry warning of the mass entry of migrants into Ceuta in the weeks before the invasion occurred.
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The Ministry denied the claims to Antena 3, and told the television channel that no such reports had allegedly been received by the Ministry. The Spanish Defense Ministry reportedly abstained from confirming or denying if such communications existed between the Ministry and the CNI.
Marlaska’s Tuesday assertions in the aftermath of last week’s migrant invasion of Ceuta prompted Miguel Tellado, Congressman and Secretary General of the center-right People’s Party (PP) to call for the resignation the Spanish Interior Minister and Defense Minister Margarita Robles. Speaking to the press in the city of Vitoria, Tellado reportedly accused the Spanish government of trying to “sell normality” when thousands of migrants still remain in Ceuta and its inhabitants are still in fear.
The lawmaker affirmed that Ceuta is a national security crisis and not a migrant crisis.
“It is evident that the Government had information about what was going to happen. We are certain that intelligence services had information indicating a human surge was heading toward the border, and failing to act despite having that information is extremely serious,” Tellado said, per the outlet El Debate.
“If the intelligence services did not fail, then the ones who failed were the Minister of the Interior and the Minister of Defense,” he continued.
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