The young Hicham Boutalamt, one of the survivors of the collision between a boat and the Civil Guard patrol boat that left 8 immigrants dead in 2012, is once again facing expulsion from Spain. This is reported this Monday by the newspaper El Mundo, which explains that Boutalamt decided to return to Spain in a cayuco when he received the summons to testify as a witness before the Provincial Court of Las Palmas, which is investigating the tragic event.
According to the newspaper, the young Hicham was one of the 4 immigrants who were traveling in the boat that the Civil Guard intercepted on June 20 two miles off the coast of Lanzarote. He is currently in the Barranco Seco Foreigners Internment Center and an expulsion order from Spain weighs on him.
Faced with this situation, the lawyers of SOS Racismo, which presented itself as a private prosecution in the case to determine who should be responsible for the overturning of the boat in 2012, have asked the Court to suspend the expulsion order as a precautionary measure. With it, Hicham could give his version of the events before the court on July 16, the date set for the trial.
On December 13, 2012, Hicham Boutalamt was traveling with 24 other immigrants in a cayuco. Just a few meters from the shore, the Civil Guard patrol boat collided with it and everyone fell into the water. Hicham, who was one of the few who knew how to swim, helped rescue his companions.
The survivors were then interned in the CIE and, the vast majority, were returned to Morocco. Afterwards, two of the survivors pointed to three of their companions as skippers of the boat and they were sent to provisional prison. As for the two witnesses who accused them, they were declared protected witnesses. The accused, who have been in prison since 2013, however, deny this fact and define themselves as three more passengers of the cayuco, something that Hicham also maintains. The young man, according to El Mundo, has spent the last two years reiterating to SOS Racismo and Coordinadora de Barrios, both appearing as private prosecutors, that he wants to narrate what happened before a judge and defends that it was the Benemérita patrol boat that caused the accident.