[EN] Robles reveals that there are 25 members of the CNI deployed in Ceuta and defends their actions in the face of the crisis

The Minister of Defence, Margarita Robles, revealed on Tuesday that there are 25 members of the National Intelligence Centre (CNI) deployed in Ceuta and defended the intelligence work carried out by the Spanish secret services, called into question by the entry of more than 70,000 migrants into the autonomous city on 30 and 31 July.

This was stressed by Margarita Robles during her extraordinary appearance, at her own request, before the Defence Committee of the Congress to explain the performance of her department in the crisis generated by the entry into Ceuta at the end of July of tens of thousands of irregular migrants from Morocco.

PERMANENT PRESENCE OF THE CNI

Robles revealed that there are usually 25 members of the National Intelligence Centre who have «their secret destiny, but who provide their services and carry out their mission in Ceuta, monitoring the situation in the area on a daily basis from multiple perspectives».

Specifically, he explained, they monitor «relations with border countries, the geopolitical situation on the southern flank, the actions of organised mafias, their use of networks, the rise and increase in jihadist terrorism and obviously the development of irregular migration».

They are also working, he added, «addressing the situation in neighbouring countries in the Sahel, as well as those destabilising actions through hybrid threats carried out by international agents».

SILENCE IMPOSED BY THE CNI

Robles stressed that the CNI works with an imposed duty of secrecy, «which is a guarantee for its action», but that «it often operates like a slab, by preventing the actions they carry out from being publicised«.

However, he has maintained that this imposed silence «cannot be an obstacle to clearly say that operationally in Ceuta», the Armed Forces, the intelligence services and the CNI, «carried out the work that was and is required of them and that they shared and analysed with the State Security Forces and with the staff of the Government Delegation».

In this way, Robles distanced himself from the Minister of the Interior, Fernando Grande-Marlaska, who after what happened assured that «there was no report, and I will also have to use the word, or warning, that nothing similar to what has happened could happen».