A FORMER Valencia police commissioner has been cleared of committing a hate crime after claiming that most immigrants arriving by boat in Spain are criminals.
He added that ‘all street crimes’ were down to foreigners.
Prosecutors wanted Ricardo Ferris, who previously headed Valencia’s Central District Police Station, jailed for three years.
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Ferris was tried in July, with a verdict announced by the Valencian Provincial Court on Thursday.
It stated that he had a right to ‘freedom of expression’ and that his comments “did not constitute a general and indiscriminate attack on all foreigners’.
The ex-police chief made his remarks during an immigration and citizen security conference on October 14, 2022 and was subsequently sacked by Spain’s Interior Ministry.
He spoke at an event organised by the Foundation for the Defence of the Spanish Nation (DENAES) and the far-right Vox party.
Ferris claimed that ‘virtually all of the arrests made by the Police and Guardia Civil are foreigners, people who come from abroad, in the broadest sense of the word.’
He went further, stating: “I’m not just talking about these guys who arrive in the small boats, many of whom are criminals.”
The former commissioner also attacked European border agency Frontex, calling it ‘a sham’ and ‘absolutely useless’ based on conversations with colleagues who had worked with the organisation.
Prosecutors argued that Ferris made his statements ‘knowing that the information he was referring to was false’ and deliberately spread messages aimed at fostering ‘rejection, contempt, hostility, and animosity’ toward immigrants.
The Valencia Court however stated in its ruling that the use of criminal law ‘must be limited to the most blatant and indisputable cases of incitement to xenophobia’.
It added that although Ferris ‘used overly categorical terms and made more than debatable assessments-some of which could be annoying and even offensive- the preponderance of his speech was not to denigrate an entire group, but to set out his views of security and migration policies’.
The verdict can be appealed.
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