The Government delegate in Ceuta distances himself from the CNI's warning to his own cabinet and rules out resigning: "I knew nothing"

The Government delegate in Ceuta, Miguel Ángel Pérez Triano, has ruled out presenting his resignation and has assured that he never knew about the warning transferred by the National Intelligence Center (CNI) to a member of his cabinet one day before the massive entry on July 30. "I knew nothing," he stated during a press conference called by surprise this Wednesday night.

Pérez Triano downplayed that communication to an "informal exchange" that did not follow the usual channels of an intelligence alert. "When the CNI has an alert, a report is made and delivered in a sealed envelope addressed to the competent bodies," he explained. In his opinion, if the information had been considered serious, it would have reached officials with direct competencies in the matter and not "a minor position."

The documents declassified this Wednesday by the Government state that the CNI wrote on July 29 to the Delegation's cabinet to warn that a "call for assault by fence and sea" was circulating on social media, planned for the following day. The agent added that the call was disseminated in two groups with a total of 180,000 followers, a figure with which he intended to show the reach of the messages.

The documentation also confirms an eleven-minute call between the CNI and the Government Delegation, the content of which remains unknown. Pérez Triano stated that he also did not receive information about that conversation. "I do not know the content of that call and I am not going to give information that I am not clear about," he responded to journalists' questions.

The delegate maintained that Ceuta had been talking for several days about the increase in migratory pressure and the calls disseminated on the internet, a situation that local media had also reported. According to his explanation, that was the context in which the CNI message occurred and its content did not allow anticipating that more than 70,000 people would end up crossing the border. "That was a different context from what would end up happening on the 30th," he remarked.

Pérez Triano also refused to assume political responsibilities for the lack of internal transmission of the message. "Self-criticism is done every day, but this Government Delegation acted from the first minute as it had to act," he defended. His department, he added, transferred to the competent ministries the situation the city was experiencing and the needs for intervention.

Regarding the possibility of dismissing the member of his cabinet who maintained communications with the CNI, the delegate has avoided anticipating decisions and has indicated that he has already spoken with that person. Pérez Triano considers that the message "did not add anything new" within the information they handled those days about attempts to enter by swimming and increasing migratory pressure.

His version coincides with that defended by Moncloa, which maintains that the CNI did not elevate that information to its chain of command nor issued a formal alert about an entry of the magnitude finally registered. The Executive considers that the figure of 180,000 corresponded to the followers of the groups where the call circulated and not to an estimate of the number of people who intended to reach Ceuta. The communication was limited to messages and calls with the Delegation and a unit of the Civil Guard.