New complaint against ultra deputy Figaredo for asking to "hunt" Ceuta migrants and calling them "invaders"

José María Figaredo has received a new complaint this Monday before the Prosecutor's Office for his calls to "hunt" the migrants who arrived in Ceuta from Morocco. The Forum of Law and Democracy has requested that the far-right Vox deputy be summoned as a suspect for possible hate crimes and crimes against the dignity of vulnerable groups.

The writ has been sent to the Prosecutor's Office of the Criminal Chamber of the Supreme Court due to Figaredo's privileged status. The organization compiles several interventions in which the ultra leader spoke of "hunting," "fishing," and "catching them all," called those who crossed the border "invaders," and demanded the entry of the Army.

"What needs to be done is to bring in the Army, catch them all, and return them to where they came from," affirmed the general secretary of the Vox Parliamentary Group during an interview broadcast on July 31. In that same intervention, he went even further. "We have to hunt them all, one by one," he maintained to justify the persecution of people who arrived in Ceuta.

The Forum considers that these expressions present migrants as "objects of persecution, capture, and return." The complaint states that Figaredo used language typical of a threat or of "prey that must be pursued" and directed his words against an entire group based on their migratory status.

The language also came from one of Vox's main leaders in Congress. Figaredo has been a deputy for Asturias since 2019, general secretary of the parliamentary group, and deputy spokesperson on the Board of Spokespersons. His statements were made on television and subsequently circulated on social media, including his party's official accounts.

From "hunting them" to "pam, pam, pam"

Figaredo maintained the same discourse during his subsequent public appearances. When several interlocutors reproached him for speaking of human beings as game, he responded that they had to be "hunted, fished, one by one, all of them." In another intervention, he accompanied his explanation with the expression "pam, pam, pam."

The reiteration occupies a central place in the complaints. Compromís deputy Alberto Ibáñez already went to the Supreme Court Prosecutor's Office last Friday and stressed that the words "were not the result of a slip of the tongue," but rather part of a conscious behavior maintained even after Figaredo was invited to qualify them.

Ibáñez also warned that expressions such as "pam, pam, pam" can evoke the use of violence against migrants. His writing placed the statements within a context marked by episodes of aggressions and neighborhood patrols against migrant people in Ceuta, which in his opinion increases the risk that the discourse of a public representative serves to legitimize new violent actions.

To the complaints of the Forum and Compromís is added the one initially filed on August 3 by a private citizen. The Hate Crimes and Discrimination Unit of the Attorney General's Office referred those actions to the Supreme Prosecutor's Office as it lacked jurisdiction to directly investigate a national deputy.

The words were uttered after the entries registered in Ceuta on July 30 and 31. Among those who jumped into the sea were numerous minors who were trying to reach Spanish territory in particularly dangerous conditions. The Forum's letter recalls that their nationality or administrative situation does not eliminate fundamental rights or the dignity inherent to any human being.

Figaredo replaced that reality with a narrative of invasion. He presented all arriving people as a collective threat, called for the mobilization of the Armed Forces, and demanded that they be individually pursued until they were returned to Morocco. The complaint considers that this combination represents them as inferior, dangerous, and deserving of coercive treatment.

The Prosecutor's Office must decide whether it crosses the criminal limit

The writings place the statements within article 510 of the Penal Code. This precept punishes those who publicly encourage, promote, or incite hatred, hostility, discrimination, or violence against a group for reasons such as their race, nation, or national origin.

The same norm contemplates actions that seriously harm the dignity of people through their humiliation, contempt, or discredit for belonging to one of these groups. The complaints argue that treating migrants as prey that must be captured can fit into both sections.

The opening of an investigation is not automatic. The Prosecutor's Office must examine the full content of the interviews, the repetition of the expressions, their public dissemination, and the context in which they were uttered. It will also have to determine whether the words reach the seriousness required by criminal legislation or remain within the broad limits of freedom of political expression.

The status of a deputy does not protect every statement made outside of parliamentary exercise either. Inviolability covers opinions expressed during the performance of the Congress's own functions, while television interviews are subject to the same criminal rules as the public statements of any other political representative.

If it finds sufficient evidence, the Prosecutor's Office may open proceedings and request actions from the Supreme Court, the only body competent to criminally investigate Figaredo due to his special jurisdiction. It can also dismiss the writings if it concludes that the words lack criminal relevance.

The Supreme Prosecutor's Office now has several complaints on its desk built around the same phrases. It must decide whether to investigate the Vox leader after he called for the mobilization of the Army, described migrants as "invaders," and publicly repeated that "they had to be hunted down, all of them, one by one."