The Moroccan diplomat has been under investigation by the Spanish National Intelligence Center (CNI) since 2011. In 2019, the CNI submitted a “confidential” report to the Iberian authorities in which it recommended refusing to grant this Moroccan consulate official Spanish citizenship “for reasons of national security”.
In this decision dated September 14, the National Court states that the Moroccan agent began procedures in October 2010 to obtain Spanish nationality, arguing that he studied at university in the country between 1989 and 1994 and returned in 2006 to work as an interpreter at the Moroccan consulate in Seville before being assigned in 2015 to Madrid.
Married to a Spanish citizen of Moroccan descent and the father of two Spanish children, he has “good civic conduct,” has no criminal record, has “integrated well into the Spanish culture and way of life” and is “fluent” in Spanish, according to reports from the civil registry, prosecutor’s office and security forces.
The CNI report on which the National Court bases its decision is from April 2019. The document states that there is evidence linking the Moroccan employee to his country’s secret services for at least 10 years. The Moroccan had denied in the first instance “any collaboration with the Moroccan intelligence services” and criticized the “laconic” nature of the CNI report, believing that it did not detail the alleged espionage activities. But for the court, the CNI report is “sufficiently clear. In the past 10 years, four other Moroccan citizens seeking Spanish citizenship have had their applications rejected on the basis of similar CNI reports.
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