Publication of McGrail Inquiry report delayed to next week over inquest concerns 

The McGrail Inquiry report will now be published early next week, the Gibraltar Government said on Monday, after the Deputy Coroner, Karl Tonna, raised concerns about its potential impact on an ongoing jury inquest. 

The report had been due to be published on December 5 but was pushed back to this week after Chief Minister Fabian Picardo underwent emergency eye surgery for a detached retina. 

Mr Picardo, who wanted to be available to address reactions to the report, expects to be sufficiently recovered by the end of this week. 

But the ongoing inquest into the deaths at sea of two Spanish nationals in a collision involving an RGP patrol boat centres on an incident that figured prominently in the McGrail Inquiry hearings. 

The two Spaniards - Mohamed Abdeslam Ahmed, 40, and Mustafa Dris Mohamed, 49, from Ceuta - sustained multiple injuries when their RHIB was involved in a collision with the Royal Gibraltar Police interceptor Sir John Chapple in Spanish waters. 

Mr Tonna wrote to the Government and said it may be that certain matters addressed in the report overlap directly with evidence and issues currently before the jury in the inquest. 

“In particular, he is concerned about any sections of the report that describe, analyse, or draw conclusions about the March 2020 marine incident and the circumstances of the resulting deaths of Mr Ahmed and Mr Mohamed,” No.6 Convent Place said in a statement. 

“HM Deputy Coroner is concerned that the public release of the Inquiry’s findings or opinions on these same events could result in the jury being improperly influenced by any such external assessment.” 

“In expressing these concerns to the Government, the Deputy Coroner - who had not initially thought that it would be necessary to do so - has requested that the Government consider temporarily redacting or withholding those parts of the Report from any public publication until the conclusion of the ongoing inquest.” 

“The Deputy Coroner's request follows submissions made to him by counsel to all interested persons in the inquest, all of whom expressed concern on this point and have urged him to take steps to avoid the risk of the inquest jury being influenced by extraneous material.” 

The jury is expected to return its verdict in the inquest toward the end of this week.  

“The Government will of course agree to the Deputy Coroner's request,” No.6 added.  

“Combining these two issues, namely that the Chief Minister will not be well enough until Friday and the Deputy Coroner's request - acceding to which would require considerable time and work to redact the relevant parts of the Report - the Government has considered that it is better to publish the Report in full as early as possible next week.” 

The Government said it regretted that publication of the report will now not take place “in good time before Christmas”, as it had previously stated.  

“Indeed, it will take place only a few days before Christmas, which the Government would not initially have contemplated,” No.6 said.  

“The Government does not consider it appropriate to delay publication further until January, unless that were to become absolutely necessary.”