Heightened security measures have been enacted by Spain and Morocco at the shared border surrounding Spain’s North African territory, Ceuta. This clampdown comes as social media buzzes with fresh invitations for Moroccan migrants to storm the border once more, reminiscent of a similar occurrence last July which left the city unaided and strained by enormous numbers.

On Friday, soldiers were visibly monitoring both business and government districts across the city while increased policing patrolled Ceuta’s primary thoroughfares, according to a report from Reuters.

Across the border in Morocco, security units clad in black maintained a watchful eye along the Fnideq beaches, historically known as key launch pads for clandestine entries into Ceuta. This area last July was the scene of a massive influx, with over 70,000 individuals arriving in a single wave from Morocco.

This bolstered security response is directly linked to online encouragements for Moroccans to once more converge upon Ceuta and Melilla, another of Spain’s territories in Africa, sparking further border tensions slated for Saturday.

“The Ministry of the Interior has detected, during the last few days, the circulation of anonymous publications and messages on certain social networks inciting the organization of attempts at collective and illegal crossing to the cities of Ceuta and Melilla, practices which carry serious risks to the safety of people and aim to instrumentalize migration issues in acts of incitement, which are criminalized by law,” Morocco’s Ministry of the Interior said in a statement posted to the country’s state-affiliated news website MAP.

Morocco arrested multiple people who circulated the inciting statements, Interior Ministry spokesperson Rachid El Khalfi said.

The Interior Ministry also called on Spain to continue working to return the remaining Moroccan migrants in Ceuta back to the North African country.

Of the more than 72,000 migrants who rushed the border, the vast majority have returned to Morocco, according to statements from Spain and Ceuta’s government. About 5,000 remain, Spain’s Interior Minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska told reporters Friday.

Spanish officials have been screening the remaining migrants and have processed roughly 500 asylum seekers’ cases, rejecting the vast majority of them, Reuters reported.

Spain has also installed floating barriers in the waters where migrants had previously swam across.

At least 96 people died during the mass migration event.

News Media contacted the governments of Spain, Morocco and Ceuta for further comment.

A Hawaiian doctor’s conviction for attempting to murder his engineer wife could be overturned after a suspicious text message during jury deliberations accurately foretold the verdict.

Gerhardt Konig, a 47-year-old anesthesiologist, has raised concerns of potential juror tampering following his conviction for attempted manslaughter of his wife, Arielle, in March 2025.

A comment on a Law&Crime YouTube livestream appeared during the trial saying, “I’ve been texting with one of the jurors and they’re going for count 3 attempted manslaughter.”

In April, Konig was found guilty of attempted manslaughter, consistent with the livestream prediction, but acquitted on other charges, including second-degree murder, following an alleged attempt to push Arielle off a cliff over her emotional affair.

Konig’s attorney, Thomas Otake, addressed the First Circuit Court Judge Paul Wong in Oahu, asserting that the text indicates a juror violated the rule prohibiting discussions about the case with outsiders during the trial.

Konig’s defense acknowledged that the ‘full scope’ of what happened remained unknown, the Honolulu Star-Advertiser reported. But they claimed to have ‘substantial concerns regarding the jury’s exposure to outside influence or extraneous information during deliberations,’ per a court filing reported by CNN.

Konig faces up to 20 years behind bars and was due to be sentenced on August 13. That hearing has been postponed indefinitely while a probe into the juror’s text continues.  

The filing noted that the livestream comment was initially spotted and emailed to prosecutors by someone whose name was redacted, according to the outlet.

‘What caught my attention is that this commenter specifically predicted the verdict – that Konig would be convicted of attempted manslaughter – before it was announced,’ the undisclosed person wrote, per the report.

Prosecutors then told the judge about what happened. However, they insisted that the livestream comment was not grounds for a new trial unless there was actual proof of ‘external influence.’

‘A juror disclosing where the jury stands is certainly problematic, but on its own it does not indicate that the other party influenced that juror in any way,’ Deputy Prosecutor Joel Garner said in the reported filing.

Konig has also argued that he could get a new trial because of what jurors publicly commented after his verdict was delivered.

Jury foreperson Makalapua Atkins told reporters after the trial that ‘the intent to kill is improbable to us, based on the evidence presented.’ according to HawaiiNewsNow.

Atkins said in a sworn statement presenting alongside Konig’s appeal that ‘the jury did not unanimously believe that [he] had an intent to kill his wife,’ CNN reported.

She declined prosecutors’ request to be interviewed by them, according to the legal filings.

Another juror, who was only identified as Juror #3, said that he believed Konig to be ’emotionally unstable’ in an interview with KHON2.

‘I don’t know if he was trying to kill his wife personally,’ the juror told the outlet. ‘I do know that it was the capacity to kill his wife personally. That’s how I felt about it.’

In response to what the jurors have said since Konig’s conviction, his defense argued that ‘conduct that could result in death or has the capacity to kill may be reckless, but it is not necessarily intentional,’ per CNN.

‘Hawaiʻi does not recognize attempted reckless manslaughter,’ the court filing continued.

Konig’s defense also stressed that the jury never convicted Konig of second–degree murder, effectively arguing that a new trial could not return to that charge.

Garner, the Deputy Prosecutor, argued that the foreperson’s comments were an example of ‘exactly the juror sharing their mental processes,’ the Star–Advertiser reported.

He pushed back on Konig’s defense and said that ‘any juror would be pressured knowing their verdict could be attacked, their thought process is not secret.’

Judge Wong set a new hearing for September 11, when the jurors will return to court before a decision is made on a possible new trial.

Prosecutors previously claimed that Konig had planned to kill Arielle during a weekend trip to Honolulu for her birthday because he was upset about her relationship with a married coworker.

He allegedly attempted to push her off a cliff on Oahu’s stunning Pali Puka trial, as well as tried to stab her with a syringe.

Konig then allegedly tried to hit his wife with a rock before being interrupted by two hikers who overheard what was happening.

He testified in court that it was his wife who attacked him first, and that he had acted in self–defense.

Konig told the courtroom that Arielle was having an affair, which he had found out through her WhatsApp account.

Arielle testified that she had an ’emotional affair’ with the coworker that included daylong message exchanges but never turned physical, according to Courthouse News.

She told the court that her husband attacked her and tried to drag her over the cliff’s edge.

In her testimony, Arielle said that Konig attempted to use syringes in his attack, but that she fought her off by biting his forearm and squeezing his testicles.

The anesthesiologist fled the scene afterwards and called his adult son from a previous marriage, Emile.

Emile testified against his father during the case and told the courtroom that his father admitted to trying to kill Arielle.

The Daily Mail has reached out to Otake, Konig’s attorney, and the Honolulu Department of the Prosecuting Attorney’s Office, which prosecuted the case, for further comment.