Spanish govt attempts to prove it did not lie
The Spanish government today declassified intelligence documents it said would refute charges that it lied in the immediate aftermath of the Madrid bombings by insisting that Basque separatists were responsible.
The reports were gathered between last Thursday and Sunday by Spain’s National Intelligence Centre, said spokesman Eduardo Zaplana.
The government has been accused of misleading the public by insisting the armed Basque separatist group Eta was its prime suspect in the bombings that killed 201 people even as evidence started surfacing of a possible Islamic link.
Zaplana said the government was acting because it had been accused of lying. The ruling party lost Sunday’s general election amid allegations that it had provoked the bombings and made Spain a target for al-Qaida by backing the US led Iraq war.
“We can lose the elections but under no circumstances will we tolerate being called liars,” Zaplana said after a cabinet meeting.
“We have suffered a campaign of defamation, insinuations and even lies, the sole aim of which was to discredit the government and make it look like a liar and a manipulator,” he said.
The government later released 24 pages of documents it said were compiled from Thursday, the day of the attack, through Sunday, the day of the election.
“They will clear up any doubt about the information government had on those days,” Zaplana said.
Titled 11-M: The whole truth, in real time, they are broken down into six sections, including a listing of events starting with the explosions themselves and a police report on a van found to contain detonators.
Two other sections are unsigned statements. One states that Eta was responsible and that there was no evidence of Islamic involvement. It was dated March 11, but carried no time of day.
A second statement, dated March 12 and also lacking a time of day, deals with an alleged al-Qaida statement claiming responsibility for the attack. It concludes that the author of the statement is linked to the Islamic extremists but lacks sufficient authority to speak on their behalf.
A government spokesman later confirmed that only the two unsigned statements are actually from the intelligence services. None of the 24 pages carry in the National Intelligence Centre letterhead.
The 10 blasts on four commuter trains began March 11 at 6.39am Irish time.
Interior Minister Angel Acebes said Thursday the government received at 2.51pm a CNI report to the effect that it was “almost certain” that Eta was behind the attacks.
Eta issued two statements last week denying responsibility for the attacks.
