By Tito Drago
MADRID, Apr 20 1998 (IPS)

Spain’s Defence Minister Eduardo Serra is to appear before parliament Tuesday in connection with charges of illegal wiretapping by his department of intelligence, caught between accusations of a “dirty war” and botched jobs.

At any rate, the term botched job seems to be the best way to describe the latest scandal involving Spain’s Higher Centre of Defence Information (CESID).

In the early 1980s, CESID installed a network of telephone bugs in offices of the Herri Batasuna (HB) coalition – the legal arm of the Basque separatist organisation ETA – in the Basque country. Part of the wiretapping network was dismantled during the socialist government of Felipe Gonzalez, in 1995.

That year a number of illegal wiretapping operations came to light. More than 90 percent of the recordings were “extorsionist material,” according to political columnist Martin Prieto. The 600 cases of wiretapping discovered at that time included bedroom conversations of politicians, businessmen and artists.

But while cases dating back to the 1983-86 “dirty war” waged against ETA continue to be heard in the courts, the newest scandal is far less sophisticated.

At some time prior to 1995, CESID officials rented an apartment above HB headquarters in Vitoria, the capital of the Basque Country. From there, they tapped the party’s telephones and taped conversations that sources close to the defence department said provided them with information on ETA movements.

But everything came crashing down when technicians from Spain’s phone company, Telefonica de Espana, were called to the HB offices to change a switchboard on Mar. 31.

The technicians found several cables connected to the upstairs apartment, and began to pull. The two CESID agents working upstairs barely had time to gather the most incriminating materials and flee the apartment.

But in their hurry, they left behind not only tape recorders. One of the spies forgot his salary stub, bearing his real name, as well as a telephone bill that listed numbers outside of the Basque Country that he had called from his home number.

Based on that information, reporters with ‘Egin’, an HB affiliated daily, discovered that from the apartment, the agents had called a normal CESID telephone number, colleagues and associates in other provinces, and even family members in other provinces, as well as the French Basque Country.

On Sunday, ‘Egin’ published the real names and addresses of the person in whose name the telephone was registered and those of his family members. And the newspaper does not plan to stop there – it has promised to publish further information connected to the scandal.

The president of the Supreme Court of Justice, Javier Delgado Barrios, and heads of associations of jurists point out that all wiretapping is illegal without a judge’s order.

At the most, a bug can be placed at the moment a crime is obviously being carried out, but only under the condition that a judge be informed to ratify or rectify the operation within 72 hours.

But according to a survey carried out by the Sigma Dos polling firm for the private TV station Antena 3, most citizens – 46.5 percent of those interviewed – approve of espionage against parties with ties to ETA. And 64.5 percent of those surveyed blame the Gonzalez administration (1982-96) for the CESID wiretapping.

The conservative government of Jose Maria Aznar called the incidents an “error,” and ordered an internal probe.

The leading opposition party, the Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party (PSOE), has called for explanations, while attributing the reports to in-fighting in the Aznar administration.

Spain’s third political party, United Left – IU, to which the Communist Party belongs – demands that Minister Serra step down. IU leader Julio Anguita said society had not reacted because it was “hardened,” due to the fact that in Spain, “robberies and murders have been carried out in the name of the state.”

HB coordinator Joseba Permach said wiretapping also took place in other Basque Country cities, and expressed his scepticism that the incidents would be cleared up by the courts.

Excerpt: