The Investigative Court number 20 of Madrid has opened an investigation after the complaint of fifty inmates of the Aluche Foreigner Detention Center (Madrid), who claim to have suffered attacks by several agents of the National Police.
As sources from the Superior Court of Justice of Madrid have confirmed to EFE, the investigation is in a very preliminary phase and the judge has requested more information about the events and medical reports on the alleged damages inflicted on the inmates.
The complaint has been filed by the NGOs that regularly visit the CIE: Neighborhood Coordinator, Samba Martine Human Rights Observatory, Pueblos Unidos and Mundo en Movimiento, as confirmed to EFE by the president of the first entity, Javier Baeza.
In the document on which the complaint is based, signed by fifty inmates and disclosed by the CIE No Madrid platform, the migrants report that on the night of February 14, between eleven and twelve at night, several Police officers who appeared to be under the influence of alcohol entered the center’s cells.
“They have brutally attacked several inmates with batons, kicks in the head, punches, in addition to insulting us and treating us like animals,” said the letter attached to the complaint, which elDiario.es has accessed, presented in court by several NGOs. to request an investigation of the facts.
Some inmates claim to have different marks on their bodies as a result of the alleged beatings by the Police and, to prove it, they have sent the court a series of photographs that this media has not had access to. The inmates have also added in their letter the badge number of one of the officers who, according to their testimony, hit them. Sources from the General Headquarters of the Police assure that “in the event of an incident” at the CIE “it is about using the minimum essential force”, without going into giving specific information about the reported events of February 14.
The complainants claim that on February 14, between eleven and twelve at night, 11 agents broke into the CIE and “committed extremely barbaric acts” against the inmates. According to the text handwritten by one of the migrants and signed by fifty of them from inside the detention center, the police attacked several inmates “with batons, kicks in the head and punches.”
The letter alerts the court that several people have been injured, including a man whose whereabouts the complainants claim to be unaware of. “One of the wounded has left here unconscious, in addition to bleeding a lot. He has disappeared, we have no idea where this person may be, since some inmates have contacted his family and his family says that they cannot find him in any hospital,” they indicate in the letter that has reached the hands of the court. in charge of compliance with regulations in the CIE, the centers where foreigners are deprived of liberty for a maximum of 60 days due to their irregular situation (which represents an administrative offense, not a crime) with the aim of proceeding to their expulsion.
Although the CIE has a private medical service, that night the Madrid health emergency services received a notice from the Madrid detention center at 11:30 p.m. As confirmed by a Samur spokesperson, a basic ambulance was sent to the Aluche detention center to treat a person, about whom there is no further information, with “musculoskeletal pain.” The patient was treated on site”without requiring hospital transfer.”
Beyond what happened on February 14, the inmates have also denounced in their letter an alleged assault on a woman that occurred three days earlier: “Another atrocious event occurred three days ago: an agent strangled an inmate until she was unconscious. “, indicates the writing. The migrants also question the “searches” carried out by the agents in the cells or supposed “visits” by the police in the migrants’ rooms to “beat the inmates, taking advantage of the fact that there are no cameras in the rooms.”
The signatories of the document recognize the “fear of reprisals” of the inmates who have witnessed the events, which is why they do not include their identification numbers in the complaint, but they are “willing to declare what they have seen to a judge or to “any NGO that grants us an in-person interview.” The letter was sent by the inmates by WhatsApp on February 15 to the NGOs accredited to carry out visits to the Aluche CIE: Samba Martine Human Rights Observatory, Coordinator of Neighborhoods and World in Movement.
Source: www.eldiario.es
