The National Court has rejected extraditing to Rabat a Moroccan citizen who is serving nine years in prison in Spain for being the skipper of a dinghy in which 16 people died of thirst, considering that the charges for which the Attorney General of Morocco claims him are the same.
Specifically, he was sentenced in 2022 by the Provincial Court of Las Palmas to five years in prison for facilitating illegal immigration and to another four years for 16 negligent homicides, as the person responsible for a dinghy that spent 14 days adrift in the Atlantic in October 2020, after departing from Dakhla towards the Canary Islands.
The National Court recognizes that the request of the General Prosecutor's Office of Morocco is covered by the extradition agreement signed between the two countries and there are no reasons to maintain that it responds to political, religious or racial persecution.
Denounced in Morocco by the brother of a victim
Furthermore, it considers that the incriminating account that Morocco makes against this person based on the complaint filed by the brother of one of the victims would entail, according to Spanish laws, an accusation for belonging to a criminal organization, the crime of facilitating illegal immigration, and homicide.
But for that very reason, it denies handing him over to the courts of Morocco, since he is already serving a sentence in Spain for those acts.