Relatives of Spanish men killed in 2020 collision at sea hold silent protest in Convent Place 

Relatives and friends of the two Spanish men killed in a collision at sea in March 2020 took part in a silent protest in Convent Place on Thursday demanding “justice” nearly six years after the incident. 

Holding a large banner and t-shirts bearing images of the two deceased men, the families sought to highlight their distress over the unresolved situation they continue to face. 

The two men - Mohamed Abdeslam Ahmed, 40, and Mustafa Dris Mohamed, 49, from Ceuta - sustained multiple injuries when their rigid-hulled inflatable boat was involved in a collision with the RGP interceptor Sir John Chapple in Spanish waters. 

Two survivors on the RHIB, which was of the type used by smugglers but was not carrying drugs at the time of the collision, told an inquest in 2021 they had been rammed by the RGP vessel during a night-time chase at high-speed and in close proximity. 

But the police officers on the RGP vessel consistently denied intentionally ramming the RHIB, insisting they believed the chase had unfolded in British waters and that they maintained a safe distance during a volatile and dangerous situation. 

They said that immediately before the collision, they had been blinded by sea spray caused by the RHIB’s evasive manoeuvres. 

The collision was the subject of an inquest in 2021 but after a tortuous legal process spanning years, the findings of that inquest were quashed last year and the case was sent back to the Coroner’s Court. 

A second inquest is due to be held in the first two weeks of December. 

For the families, that anguish has a practical impact because without an inquest finding, they are unable to obtain the death certificates needed to resolve their personal affairs. 

Administratively, the Spanish state has no formal confirmation that the two men are dead, even though they have long ago been buried in Ceuta. 

Among other pressures, that means the families continue to receive official correspondence in the names of the two deceased men. 

Both men had children, in one case of a young age, and the families are unable to formalise their affairs including accessing benefits they might otherwise be entitled to. 

“It’s like an endless cycle of torture,” one relative said on Thursday. 

“You try to move on and then it’s back to the start again.” 

“Nothing is going to bring them back but we just want this suffering to end.” 

At a preliminary hearing earlier this year, Chris Finch, the families’ lawyer, said the burden on his clients “is massive”. 

At the time, Karl Tonna, the Coroner who will hear the inquest in December, said he would report its findings to the Registrar of Births and Deaths, “but then it’s a matter for him”. 

The protest, which had been cleared beforehand with the Royal Gibraltar Police, unfolded without incident.