Wikileaks And The Madrid Bombings

The US diplomatic cables from Spain released by Wikileaks contain little unknown information about the Madrid bombings, but they do shed some light on the handling of the bombings by the government in power at the time. On the day of the bombings, March 11th 2004, it is clear that the US embassy in Madrid believed the story coming from the Spanish government that that attack was the work of the Basque group ETA. What is emphasised in the cable sent from the embassy is the intense diplomatic pressure from the Aznar administration to consider only the possibility of ETA authorship.

The cable was sent just before 2 p.m. on the day of the train bombings, before any of the key evidence of Islamist responsibility started to emerge. It quotes the then interior minister, Angel Acebes, as saying "I will not accept the intolerable assertion by those who try to divert the culpability to other groups." At this point on that day virtually the only person publicly suggesting Islamist responsibility was Arnaldo Otegi, a leader of ETA's political wing Batasuna. The cable states that the Madrid embassy received direct contacts from Aznar's office to say that the government was sure that ETA was responsible. "They request that the USG support this in its declarations and not express any doubt in public comments about the party responsible."

When the US ambassador spoke to Spain's foreign minister, Ana Palacio, she additionally requested that all references to ETA should describe them as "ETA terrorists" rather than "Basque separatists". This is a long standing demand of many Spaniards who appear to believe that reality is determined solely by the language you choose to describe it, and who constantly pressure international media groups to always describe ETA as terrorists. The cable comment section does not dispute the Spanish government's assertions regarding ETA but does note that such an attack by them represents a major shift in their modus operandi. It concludes by recognising that the government might benefit politically from ETA being held responsible, whereas any doubt about authorship could focus attention on the disastrous Spanish involvement in the Iraq war. The key issue at the heart of the Spanish government's handling of the bombings in the days between March 11th and the election on March 14th.

A few days later, on the 15th March, a further cable recognises that the focus of the investigation has now shifted to Al-Qaeda and describes the first arrests that were made by following the trail of the mobile phones used to detonate the train bombs. The cable also records the recovery on March 13th of the video tape in which a claim of responsibility was made for the Madrid  attacks. Later on in 2004 the political fallout from the bombings was captured in a cable describing how the former prime minister José Maria Aznar was kept out of the Partido Popular's campaign for the European elections because he was seen as being "too radioactive to help in the campaign." 

Then, in 2006, a cable updating the situation on terrorism related cases makes reference to the campaign behind the conspiracy theories concerning the bombings. The cable states "a segment of the opposition Popular Party (PP) and the newspaper El Mundo continue to allege a Socialist party conspiracy and cover up and claim that the Basque terrorist group ETA had some link with the March 11 attacks." It goes on to note that the attitude of the PP is slowing the pace of the prosecution of those charged with the bombings. These cables were issued under the Bush administration which was far more favourable towards the Aznar government than the successor one led by Zapatero. A real coup for Wikileaks would of course be the release of the documentation concerning the bombings that was either  removed or destroyed by Aznar's government before leaving office. That would have much to tell us about the days between March 11th and the 14th 2004. 

Another Nail In The Coffin

Yesterday we got the verdict in the trial of the four senior police officers accused of falsifying a forensic report concerning the discovery of boric acid at the home of Hassan el Haski. Sanity prevailed, and the ridiculous charges were dismissed in a verdict that makes it absolutely clear no crime was committed. Just as they did with the sentence in the main trial for the Madrid train bombings, the conspiracy theorists pick at the wording of the verdict to see if there is anything there which they can twist in an effort to get some consolation from yet another blow to their attempts to cast doubt on the authorship of their bombings. From yesterday’s decision they have inevitably picked up on the view of the judges that the way in which the report was altered was irregular. This of course is a long way from saying that any offence has been committed, but the conspiracy theorist media use this conclusion to try and suggest that they have been at least partially vindicated. What they seek to avoid above all is any kind of admission that they may ever have been wrong in urging the conviction of the officers concerned.

The problem with their conclusion is that the court did not find any irregularity at all in the removal of the paragraphs concerning the finding of boric acid in an ETA safe house and the attempt to link this to the discovery in El Haski's house. It is this section of the report which is at the heart of the whole controversy. What the judges said was that the correct way to have proceeded would have been to assign a fresh report to another specialist, rather than the superior officer changing the original one himself. The omission of the data relating to ETA is not only not considered irregular, the verdict actually explains in considerable detail why this data was irrelevant to the purpose of the report. The judges make clear that they regard the section as unfounded speculation, lacking in scientific rigour and which could only produce confusion. After all, this document was supposed to be a forensic analysis of the substance found, boric acid, this was what was requested by the investigating officers from their forensic colleagues. If the accused had attempted to change the results of the chemical analysis then there would be cause for concern, but this is not what happened. The judges also pointed out in their reasoning the total lack of any evidence relating boric acid to any past terrorist activity and that the inclusion of the references to previous discoveries of this substance added nothing at all to the investigation of the Madrid bombings. The verdict describes it as complementary information of little or no value.

Naturally none of the pro-conspiracy theory media sees any need to report such damning conclusions for yet another of their attempts to mix ETA with the bombings. TeleMadrid yesterday demonstrated how painful it is to recognise reality by focusing its report entirely on the question of the supposed irregularities. El Mundo takes the manipulation a stage further than Telemadrid. Their edition this morning carried a headline that is not just manipulation of the verdict, it is manifestly false. They claim that the forensic police have been accused of being untruthful by the court in order to avoid linking ETA to the bombings. The word that appears in quotes in their headline, “inveraz”, doesn’t actually appear at all in the document of the verdict although El Mundo attempts to pretend it is citing that source. The only point at which the verdict questions the truthfulness of what was done is over the issue of one of the accused putting his name on the report for an analysis which he hadn’t carried out himself. The verdict itself makes clear that this is not that unusual a practice, and given that the officer concerned accepted the findings of the original chemical analysis there was no reason for him to repeat it. From such tiny crumbs El Mundo attempts to deceive its readers about what has really happened. Not surprising, because the whole sorry, crazy affair began with them.



READ MORE IN SPANISH:
The verdict of the court
El Mundo - La Policía Científica fue 'inveraz' para no vincular a ETA con el 11-M
El País - Los policías no cometieron falsedad; las modificaciones eran "inocuas"

Too Much Acid Damages The Brain

One of the most bizarre and ridiculous creations of those behind the conspiracy theories about the Madrid bombings has returned to haunt us, several months after the end of the trial. The case against several senior senior police officers accused of manipulating official reports began yesterday in Madrid. The background to this trial begins with a police report produced following the search of the residence of Hassan el Haski, one of those sentenced in the main trial last year. The police report focused on the finding of a quantity of boric acid in El Haski's home. The "specialists" preparing the report did some investigation in their databases and found that the same substance had also previously been recovered from a house used by an ETA commando and in a case concerning what the Spanish press refer to as an "anti-system" activist. There was no relationship between the different cases, and more importantly there is no evidence linking the presence of boric acid to the activities of any of those detained. Boric acid is sold openly and legally over the counter in Spain for a variety of uses including reduction of foot odour and killing cockroaches.

Despite the absence of any data linking the different cases the initial report produced by the police attempted to suggest that there could be a connection between the finding of boric acid in El Haski's home, and in that used some years earlier by the ETA commando. This speculative piece of guesswork was removed from the final report on the orders of superior officers. It's not hard to find good motives for doing so, given the lack of any connection between a common household substance and terrorist activities. It is reasonably likely that coffee was also present in the residences searched in these different cases, but no one would have looked favourably at a report suggesting connections between Islamists and ETA just because of the discovery of that substance.

However, with the conspiracy theorists busily working to undermine the case against those accused of the bombings in 2006, strange things started to happen. The officers responsible for the original report oddly decided to try and resubmit their original report over a year after it had first been prepared, speculative nonsense about boric acid included. The attempt failed, but the report then quickly found its way to El Mundo who immediately led in typical style with a story claiming that there were attempts to suppress evidence of ETA connections to the Madrid bombings. Supporters of the conspiracy theories then presented an accusation alleging falsification of official documentation against senior officers and managed to manoeuvre the handling of the case so that it would be dealt with by a judge in Madrid with known conservative sympathies.

The case has now come to court and will be tried even though the state prosecution service regards the accusation as completely unfounded. The accusation is instead being sustained by the usual suspects, pro conspiracy theory victims associations and their political allies. Anyone found guilty of the charges faces a potential prison sentence, yet it seems hard to believe that such an outcome is possible even with the known politicisation of the Spanish judicial system. Thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of judicial issues pile up in a system that is acknowledged to be failing to serve its purpose. Yet cases such as this one, which owe their existence solely to the determination of the conspiracy theorists to press anything that has even the most tenuous of connections to ETA, are allowed to proceed and clog up the courts.

READ MORE IN SPANISH:
El País - El policía que quitó las alusiones a ETA en un informe del 11-M dice que "eran absurdas"
El Mundo - Ramírez exculpa al comisario Santano y asume que alteró el informe del ácido bórico

The Slow Death Of The ETA Connection

The battle by Agustín Díaz de Mera, in charge of the Spanish police at the time of the Madrid bombings, to avoid prosecution for contempt of court continues. Díaz de Mera got into this mess because he decided to repeat in the trial a claim he had made on a pro-conspiracy theory radio programme; that an official report existed linking ETA to the Madrid bombings. The senior police officer that he eventually named as his source for this claim, Enrique García Castaño, has not only firmly denied having been a source for the claims, he has also made it clear that Díaz de Mera put him under intense pressure to help his "friend" out of the hole he had dug for himself. Immediately following the appearance of García Castaño in the trial, Díaz de Mera issued a statement calling him a liar and challenging him to a face to face confrontation before a judge. Obviously such a confrontation would just be the word of one man against another, in the absence of anyone else to offer evidence on the issue. The mistake Díaz de Mera made when he appeared in court, thinking that he could just casually introduce the conspiracy theory on ETA participation, without providing evidence, continues to haunt him.

In general things are going from bad to worse for the proponents of ETA participation in the bombings, not that this is likely to stop them from repeating the mantra. The appearance last week of the 3 ETA members demonstrated just how farcical the whole issue is, as those who had demanded the appearance of these witnesses showed themselves completely unable to confront them with any evidence at all demonstrating their connection to the train bombings. When the final results of the explosives analysis are released we can expect a huge amount of noise from the chess players because one single test on one single sample from many is said to have shown traces of nitroglycerine. The conspiracy theorists will claim this to be proof of the use of Titadine dynamite instead of Goma 2 Eco, and therefore proof of ETA involvement because Titadine has been used by them on several occasions. It is nonsense, and I will write in some detail on the issue when it comes up. It will be the only thing the faith based reasoners who so fervently desire any kind of connection to ETA have left to offer.

READ MORE IN SPANISH:
El País

Díaz De Mera Tries To Save His Skin

Agustín Díaz de Mera, the director general of the police at the time of the Madrid bombings, got himself into potentially serious problems when he testified a couple of weeks ago on allegations he had made about a report allegedly linking ETA to the bombings. He was fined for contempt of court and facing the threat of a possible jail sentence for failing to provide his source for the allegations he made in court.

It now appears that on the evening of the court session where he testified, Díaz de Mera was already on the telephone hunting for someone who he could name to escape any further judicial consequences concerning his allegations. Having failed to find anyone prepared to voluntarily accept being named as his source, he sent a letter to the court last week in which he provided the names of 4 police officers who he claims were involved in some way in the affair. Although the officers were not directly named in published versions, it did not take the press long to find out who was being referred to, and all officers involved have denied ever talking to Diaz de Mera about attempts to hide ETA links to the bombings. The policeman who has now been identified as the source referred to by Díaz de Mera, Enrique Garcia Castaño, has made it clear in a written statement to his superior officers that he received telephone calls from Díaz de Mera after the 28th March pressurizing him to say that he wass the source for the allegations made.

Díaz de Mera claimed that he was naming his source because his loyalty towards him had not been reciprocated. "Loyalty" in this case would presumably have meant a willingness to be identified as the source, regardless of whether it was true or not, so that the contempt charges would not be pressed further. It is a situation completely of Díaz de Mera's own making, and his attempts to make someone else the fall-guy for it are a sign of the ruthlessness and absence of integrity of those determined to maintain the fictional link between ETA and the train bombings. At least with his letter we got an important clarification, it became clear that the report he was referring to had not been hidden at all, there is a report on links between ETA and Islamists included in the judicial indictment; the problem for the conspiracy theorists is that it rejects such links. Díaz de Mera claims in his letter that he had been told that this report had been "manipulated" to remove suggestions of links that existed. Nobody has been able to provide a scrap of evidence to back up this claim, and the prosecution in the trial has requested that the 4 officers identified by Díaz de Mera be called to testify. If they do, it will be an interesting session, the former police chief may have his immunity from the European Parliament to protect him but he is not out of trouble yet. Looking at the issue from the outside, it is hard not to feel a certain amount of fear when you consider that this was the person in charge of the Spanish police at the time of the bombings.

READ MORE IN ENGLISH:
International Herald Tribune - Spanish ruling party accuses ex-police chief of lying at Madrid terror trial
AOL News - Ex-police chief lying in Madrid bombing trial-minister

READ MORE IN SPANISH:
20 Minutos - La fuente que relacionaba ETA y 11-M, según Díaz de Mera, niega este vínculo
El País - La supuesta fuente policial de Díaz de Mera niega que le alertara de la vinculación entre ETA y el 11-M

The Extraordinary Case Of The Indestructible ST Timer

One characteristic feature of conspiracy theories in general is their durability even in the face of clear evidence demonstrating the lack of substance behind them. For a very good example of this from the London bombings, take a look at this article from the Guardian . In reality, we don’t need the example of London to demonstrate the point; the conspiracy theories about the Madrid bombings show very well how an unfounded accusation can spread and become part of the debate about the bombings.

A few months ago, on my other blog, I wrote a post about an article that had been published in El Mundo. The article concerned the discovery of an “ST” timer during the search of a workshop being rented by one of those on trial for the bombings. This story originally attracted my attention because I noticed it on a blog being written in English by a supporter of the conspiracy theories. As presented on this other blog, the story was that the timer found had actually been made by ETA, and it was therefore a clear proof of ETA involvement in the Madrid bombings. On reading the original story from El Mundo, I found no facts demonstrating that ETA had made the timer, and I was struck by the fact that the device in question had what was clearly a model number - ST 17 MEC 24 H INT/160 . Now either ETA had their own timer factory with a significant range of products, and perhaps a catalogue or website advertising them, or we were dealing with a timer that had been industrially manufactured.

On questioning the post, the writer of the blog assured me that she knew the story was true because El Mundo’s director Pedro J Ramirez had stated it to be so on the radio program of his good friend Federico Jiménez Losantos. Call me a sceptic if you like, but this wasn’t really convincing enough and after a further exchange the blog’s author discovered a document from the Spanish Parliament where the Minister of the Interior had listed the industrially made ST timers as being one of several types used by ETA in the past. So the idea that the device was made by ETA was not supported by any evidence except the extremely unreliable word of Pedro J Ramirez.

The original newspaper article appears with a photograph of a timer recovered from an ETA commando in the past. The timer has a label on it with the words “Segurtasen Temporizadorea” in Basque. Ramirez argued, again without providing any evidence, that the ST timer was so called because it was the short version of the Basque description of the timer found. Now, put the words “ST” and “timer” into Google and see the long list of search results you get. Congratulations, you have just become an investigative reporter, perhaps not the very best in the world, but already a good bit better than anyone on the payroll of El Mundo.

The timer they didn't find.

You might think that would be the end of the matter, the story had been published and Ramirez had embellished it with the additional details needed to establish the connection to ETA. It should have been just another of the bogus connections that the conspiracy theorists have tried to create between ETA and the Madrid bombings. Over the next few months I got the occasional hit from someone who was obviously doing an Internet search on the model number of the timer, but apart from that the story barely surfaced; even on the web pages of conspiracy theory supporters.

However, I did not count on a defence lawyer for two of the accused in the trial adopting elements of the conspiracy theories as part of the defence being presented. It turns out that this lawyer, representing Jamal Zougam and Basel Ghalyoun, decided to include the photograph of the ETA timer in a written submission to the court. Along with the photograph is a text which links this timer to the one discovered by the police investigating the train bombings, alongside claims that only ETA would ever use such a timer. The newspaper El País picked up on this and ran a story on the inclusion by this lawyer of conspiracy theory material, and in the process demonstrated the clear industrial origin of the timer in question.

My original post on this issue was actually the first thing I wrote about the conspiracy theories; I never suspected at the time that 8 months later I would be returning to the same topic on a blog entirely dedicated to the subject of the Madrid bombings. The unpredictable consequences of blogging. What this story demonstrates is a sad reality that the conspiracy theorists are very much aware of; that an often repeated lie refuses to die. For them, anything that demonstrates even the most tenuous connection to ETA acquires an almost mystical significance that resists any effort to present the facts behind the issue. I'm not convinced that we have heard the last of the ST timer.

READ MORE IN SPANISH:

El País