Annual Report 2012: Spain’s National Preventive Mechanism Whenever medical care is given for injuries, it must communicated to the judicial authorities Experts of the Ombudsman Institution inspected an operation organized by the Spanish Central Department of Immigration and Borders The transfer from the Immigrant Detention Center of Aluche to the airport was carried out without any problem The head of the operation briefed the police agents on how the operation would unfold 160 235. In respect to failed repatriations, a medical examination of returnees is only carried out if they have injuries, and the judicial authorities are only in­ formed in case of severe injuries. This should be corrected, so that whenever medical care is provided due to injuries and irrespective of the scope of the inju­ ries, the report of injuries must be forwarded to the judicial authorities. 236. In the inspection of the operation of repatriation of foreign nationals or­ ganized by the Spanish Central Department of Immigration and Borders, per­ formed the day after the one described above, the same methodology employed in the FRONTEX repatriation operation was used, although this time the inspec­ tion began at the Aluche police station and included the transfer to the airport. On the flight with destination to Guayaquil and Bogota 47 citizens from Ecuador and 59 from Colombia were repatriated, including a minor and his father. Fur­ thermore, a Colombian citizen who had been expelled from Holland and was accompanied by three police agents from that country was also being repatriated on that flight. 237. Six vehicles were used for the transfer of the deportees at the Aluche police station to the Central Unit for Deportation and Repatriation airport facilities: a bus, four vans, and a police vehicle. The process began in the hall of the Immi­ grant Detention Center in Madrid, when detainees left the Immigrant Detention Center and were distributed to the different vehicles mentioned, together with their belongings. Two of the experts of the NPM team who took part in this in­ spection travelled on the bus together with 20 deportees, to check on site how the transfer was carried out. The transfer took 25 minutes, during which one of the police agents entered the area where the detainees were seated five times to see how they were, interacting with them to keep them calm and thus avoid any in­ cident, and informing them ten minutes before reaching the airport where the trip was going to end. 238. In the airport at the Central Unit for Deportation and Repatriation facili­ ties, the team members attended a meeting at which the head of operations briefed the police agents on how the operation was going to unfold, and specifi­ cally informed that there were three detainees who required special surveillance given their police or criminal records and prior personal behavior. He informed the police agents of the seating distribution, for both the deportees and the es­ corts, and that the Consul of Columbia would also be on the flight, together with five other employees of the Embassy and Consulate and two Colombian police agents. Finally he explained that the escort service in charge of the custody of the deportees consisted of 30 agents from the Spanish National Police Force’s Brigade for Deportation of Foreign Offenders (abbreviated as BEDEX in Spanish), 44 from the Police Action Unit (abbreviated as UIP in Spanish), 33 from the Central Department of Immigration and Border Police, 2 INTERPOL agents and 3 es­ corts from Holland, who were accompanying a Colombian citizen being repatri­ ated by that country. Of the total number of escorts, 11 were women. THE OMBUDSMAN OF SPAIN