Karim El Baqqali has told the Guardia Civil in statements that he was at the helm of the narcolancha involved in the February 9 incident at the port of Barbate in Cádiz, which resulted in the deaths of two Guardia Civil officers.
This point was recounted outside the Barbate courthouse by Miguel Lozano, the lawyer representing one of the victims’ families. Lozano stressed that El Baqqali, who was placed in judicial custody on Friday, surrendered to the Guardia Civil in Barbate, accompanied by a lawyer.
After months on the run in Morocco, he arrived on the Cadiz coast aboard a vessel that, according to the lawyer, was not a narcolancha.
He surrendered on the Hierbabuena beach, near the Barbate port where the events occurred, with wet clothes and accompanied by a lawyer, as indicated.
In his statements to investigators, the detainee, who had been hiding in Morocco for months, admitted that he was the pilot of the narcolancha that collided with the agents’ boat up to six times, he said.
However, he argued that those actions were maneuvers to avoid a collision with the agents’ boat, part of a defense strategy intended to prevent the two deaths from being classified as murders and to have them defined as reckless homicide, the lawyer stressed.