An exclusive that could make Marlaska (and Sánchez) fall

BarcelonaWhen Pedro J. Ramírez founded El Español a decade ago, he decided to bring with him a court reporter who had been key at El Mundo when he was its director: María Peral. Peral is a journalist with decades of experience in a particularly competitive field in Madrid who started at El País and also worked for Abc, but it was under Ramírez's orders that she excelled. She was the one who published, for example, the document that certified the donation of 65 million euros from Juan Carlos I to Corinna Larsen. Well, this journalist has just published an exclusive that proves the Minister of the Interior, Fernando Grande-Marlaska, wrong, and puts the Spanish Prime Minister, Pedro Sánchez, in a very bad position.

It concerns a report from the National Center for Immigration and Borders, an intelligence unit that reports to the National Police, which confirms that the Moroccan police planned and monitored the massive entry of migrants on July 30 in Ceuta. This report demolishes the Spanish government's entire argument about the crisis, which until now had absolved Morocco of all responsibility, and shows that it is incapable of even controlling its own police force. Today is one of those days when all the media are obliged to mention the name of El Español in reports about the crisis and also to take our hats off to Peral's work, who has been the first to access a document that could be fatal for the Spanish government.

Beyond the reasons for the National Police's failure to inform their superiors, the fact is that the Ceuta crisis is now much more complicated and is entering an unknown dimension, with a possible diplomatic crisis between Spain and Morocco on the horizon. A scenario that Pedro Sánchez has always wanted to avoid.