announced the visit of King Juan Carlos I and Queen Sofia to Ceuta and Melilla from 5 and 6 November. The day before, the Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, had told that fact to the opposition leader Mariano Rajoy during an official ceremony, which Rajoy welcomed. The King of Spain had not visited Ceuta and Melilla in his reign. The most immediate antecedent of the stay of King Juan Carlos I in these cities dates back to 1970, when he undertook a visit to Ceuta in his capacity as Prince of Asturias on the occasion of the fiftieth anniversary of the Spanish Legion. The last visit of a Head of State of Spain to Ceuta and Melilla was by king Alfonso XIII, who was last seen in 1927, and President of the Second Republic, Niceto Alcala Zamora, on 4 November 1933. The king of Spain was scheduled to visit to the autonomous city of Melilla in 1997 on the occasion of the five hundredth anniversary of the founding of the city, but the pressure of the Moroccan authorities led to the cancellation of the visit. On November 5, the King and the Queen of Spain stayed in Ceuta for five hours, where they spoke to the Assembly of the Autonomous City, where the monarch said that he "had an pending commitment to Ceuta". Neither the king nor the Minister of Public Administration who accompanied him, Elena Salgado, or any other Spanish authority made any mention of the situation in Morocco. The King was welcomed by 25,000 people. On November 6, the king came to Melilla, in which the Spanish monarch intervened the Assembly. There he acknowledged the loyalty of Melillans to the Crown. He made specific reference to Morocco, but said that "Spain through mutual respect cultivates relations of sincere friendship with its neighbors." The number of people who gathered to welcome the King was estimated at 30,000. Additional background of the conflict A month before the announcement of the royal visit, the judge of the National Court of Spain, Baltasar Garzón, had opened a file to investigate an alleged genocide of Sahrawis by Morocco, accepting to process the lawsuit filed in 2006 by various associations defending human rights and relatives of prisoners and disappeared Saharawis, which accused 31 senior officials of Moroccan security. Morocco, meanwhile, was accused of siding with the positions of the Polisario Front. Moroccan