What´s up in Spain

WE´VE BEEN TOLD...

... that the so-called “head“ of the attack, El Chino, brought the explosives by car from Asturias, a northern region, on Februar 28th.

BUT...

- The man who sold them to him was a police informer, who phoned his contact officer just before and just after the bombs had been taken to Madrid.

- During the journey, El Chino changed routes, having to climb a mountain during a snow storm, only to follow another road, parallel to the one used by ETA terrorist to send more explosives to Madrid in the same period. And, he was stopped by the Guardia Civil, a police corp, who gave him three fines but let him go in a stolen car, with a false belgian passport while speaking Spanish. In that journey, the explosives weren´t in his car, he was only the first of two cars, but it was suspicious enough.

WE`VE BEEN TOLD...

... that a group led by two brothers (Almallah) was behind the attack plans.

BUT...

- Several members of that group started to be controlled by different Police units and corps one year before the attack. In that year, they were followed a total of 81 days.

- Their names, cars, addresses and jobs were known by their followers.

- All the control activity stopped on February 17th, less than a month before the attack.

WE`VE BEEN TOLD...

... that the people responsible for the attack on 11-M got themselves killed in an explotion in an appartment in Madrid`s suburbs, after the Police had surrounded them.Before that, they had been firing rifles for hours.

BUT...

- There were too few bullet shells in the flat for them to have been firing for hours.

- No one saw any terrorist alive in the flat that day. Although the media were there, and it is usual procedure for the SWATs to record their operations, there are no images either.

- The damage to the corpses shows that they were quite far appart from each other. And one of them appeared to have been hidden behind a matress.

- One of the corpses had his trousers put on the wrong way.

- Two corpses had dinamite around their bodies, which hadn´t exploded (there was no detonator and they were away from the others).

- No autopsy was performed on them.

- Days later, somewhere else, a good-bye letter from one of the peole who died in the flat was randomly found in someone else´s bag. The writing was arabic, but it had two signatures: one, in the same arabic writing, that said “Abdullah“, and other, in latin characters, that said “Kounjaa“. This last signature was used to identify the letter as belonging to Abdenabi Kounjaa, one of the men who died in the flat. But that signature didn´t even look alike the one in Kounjaa´s passport, his signature for documents in Spanish. And why would he use his “spanish“ signature for his family, who speaks arab?

- Not all the people dead in the flat were properly IDed. We know there were 7 people in there (´cause there are 7 different DNA sets). Four of them were IDed by their fingerprints (35 of their 40 fingers were found). From the other three people, not a single finger was found. From the stuff in the flat, there were firngerprints only in some books, but the could be from anyone who had read that book at some time (e.g. on the the prints is from a man who was in jail much before the flat was rented). There were no fingerprints in the rifles.

WE´VE BEEN TOLD...

... that the terrorists recorded a videotape that was found in a paper bin near Madrid´s biggest mosque.

BUT...

- The phone call to Madrid´s regional television led on 14-M (the day of the election) to the arrest of a spaniard.

- The nationality of the person in the tape isn´t clear.

- The tape was recorded on the same afternoon of 13-M, when most media were already claiming it was all integrism and the government was lying.

WE´VE BEEN TOLD...

...that the bombs on 11-M had mobile phones and cards like the ones in the bag found in the police station (see part II), and were first activated in a country house in a town near Madrid, rented by one of the leaders of the terrorist group. That means (according to the official version): 13 bombs = 13 mobiles + 13 cards.

BUT...

- In that town only 7 of the mobile phones and cards were activated, on the afternoon of 10-M.

- Only 10 mobiles were bought in the shop of the two hindu indians the days before 11-M.

- Those mobiles were "freed" (made to work for all companies) in the shop of a policeman of sirian origin. Why were they freed there, while the cards had been bought in a shop where it could also be made?

- It isn´t very clever to use mobile phones in the bombs, because there are other methods that are safer AND untraceable.

WE´VE BEEN TOLD...

... that in the country house near Madrid lived one of the leaders (El Chino), and that´s where the attack were prepared.

BUT...

- They weren´t muslim integrists, but regular criminals, who stole cars and dealt with drugs.

- El Chino´s and one of his mate´s mobiles were taped by the police before 11-M, but the tapping stopped the day after the attack.

- El Chino carried on a normal life before and after the attack. That includes: taking his son to a catholic school and making a party on March 19th to celebrate Father´s Day, being with his partner, a non-muslim woman who smokes and wears jeans. Everything pretty uncanny for a muslim integrist.

- It took the police too long to figure out which house it was the integrists were supposedly meeting, considering it was rented to the wife of a muslim integrist who was in jail since 2001.

NEXT PART (COMING HOPEFULLY TOMORROW): Where did the explosives come from, who were the thinking heads, why nothing was done to prevent the attack and how 7 suspects/witnesses died less than a month after the attack.

WE´VE BEEN TOLD...

... that the five suspects arrested the day before the elections (and whose arrestment played a very important role in changing the results), were related to the attacks, and supposedly muslim radical terrorists.

BUT...

- Four out of five people were free without charges a few weeks afterwards.

- Two of them weren´t muslim, but hindus.

- Their only "crime" had been selling mobile phones and mobile cards to the terrorists, or owning the shop where those phones and cards had been sold. What would the police had done if they had bought the phones in Harrods (no idea if they sell phones in Harrods)? Arrest Mohamed Al Fayed?

- It´s becoming more and more doubtful that they really sold the phones and cards.

WE´VE BEEN TOLD...

... that Jamal Zougham, the fifth man arrested, did not only sell the cards, but place some of the bombs in the trains too.

BUT...

- There were no fingerprints of him in any of the different crime scenes.

- There were also no DNA traces.

- He didn´t phone or was phoned by anyone else involved. Analysis of phone calls has been a key in locating and IDing different suspects, but he is nowhere to be found.

- Some of the witnesses who said they had seen him in the trains contradicted themselves, but not to the exact point to invalidate their testimony. Anyone, they identified him after the photo had been released to the media, so virtually everyone in Spain was familiar with his face.

- The judge investigating the bombs (Judge Del Olmo, for further reference) has been given reports falsely accusing him of stuff that was done by other suspects. For instances, his name appeared in a report saying he lived and had done stuff that "belonged" to another suspects who shared the same first name. Pretty convenient to be simply a mistake, isn´t it?

WE´VE BEEN TOLD...

The terrorist went from their residence in a town called Morata de Tajuña to Alcala (where supposedly they took the train) in a stolen Kangoo van, in which a cassette tape with coranic verses, a few detonators and traces from explosives were found.

BUT...

-There are no fingerprints or DNA traces in the van or in the tape. The only fingerprints were in the detonators. And there were many clothes with DNA.

- Two trained dogs were unable to smell the traces of explosives.

- The van was locked, no signs of having been forced, which means whoever used it had the keys. The owner of the van said his keys had been stolen 8 months before. If it seems clear the explosives and mobile phones were bought only a few days before 11-M, why would the steal a van 8 whole months before?

- The van´s plate wasn´t false. The people in charge of that part of the attack were used to stealing and re-selling cars, whose plates were all false. Why didn´t they falsificate the plate of the only vehicle they couldn´t afford being found? It´s not like they had no time (8 months!)

- There should have been at least 12 terrorists with 12 bags, so there should have been another two cars.

WE´VE BEEN TOLD...

Another bag was found in a police station, theoretically coming from one of the affected stations, and it contained another bomb, which, miracously, didn´t work.

BUT...

- Nobody remembers it being in the train station, or in the way to the police station. Not even the policeman in charge of controling all the objects taken from the train station.

- The explosive isn´t the same type as the one found in other bags which didn´t explode.

- Beside the explosives, the bag contained pieces of metal so the bomb would hurt more. According to the injuries in the victims, none of the other bombs had pieces of metal.

- There were (again) no fingerprints or DNA traces in the bag.

- All the bombs that exploded did it only with second´s difference, at 7.38 a.m. But this bomb was programmed for 7.40.

- The bomb in the bag didn´t explode only because it was prepared not to explore: two wires weren´t connected. On the same day the bag was found, the police already knew about this because of an X-Ray they had run. But in the following four months they failed to explain it to the judge investigating the attack, inventing a whole series of absurd explanations.

Last Saturday was two years since 10 bombs exploded in three commuter trains in Madrid, killing almost 200 people. It was three days before the elections. At the beginning everybody thought it was ETA, but in the two following days lots of information was leaked to the media (some true, some doubtful, and some false). In the end, public oppinion was pretty sure that it was all islamic integrists´doing, due to Spain´s part in Irak war. Since the government had “lied“, insisting the main suspect was ETA, the socialists came to power. A power it was very unlikely they would have won, hadn´t the bombing taken place. But that´s no the point here.

Since then, the government, or at least some police sectors, have done everything in their power to ensure the official truth was never questioned. In the Parliament Commission about the attacks, all parties systematically rejected the previous´ government requested witnesses and documents.

But from the beginning, a small group of journalists from the newspaper El Mundo kept investigating their own way. This newspaper uncovered many crimes and foul plays by other governments, but has now been researching what has been called The 11-M Black Holes.

Another journalist has followed another line, comparing what has been said to the people, and what really is in the official investigation, and uncovering many things that don´t add up, or ever clearly contradict one another.

Due to the second aniversary of the attacks, this journalist has summarized the nearly 70 pages he´s written until now in a disturbing comparison between what we have been told, and all the “but“s he´s discovered.

Here a first part of it.

WE´VE BEEN TOLD... that in the bombs exploded 10 bag-bombs with 10 Kg Goma 2-ECO (a type of dinamite)

BUT...

a) The aftereffects of the bombs are more consistent with an explosive of military kind, like C3 or C4.

b) In two places absolutely no traces of any explosive were found.

c) In the other 8 places only a general component of dinamite was found, thus making it impossible to identify what kind of dinamite it was.

d) The form of the wreckage and the placing of the bombs isn´t consistent with bag-bombs.

e) After the bombings, a van and another bag were found, leading to some of the first and most important pieces of information which we were told before the elections. The explosives found in that van and bag are different from each other: one is purely the Goma 2-ECO type of dinamite, the other one is mixed with an ingredient of military explosives. And there´s no hard evidence any of the two is the same that was in the trains. Was one of them a false lead? If it was, shouldn´t all the leads gathered from it, at least, reevaluated?

f) Two samples of this two explosives were analized, and, being different, the chief of the explosives unit of the police wrote a report affirming they were similar because both of them had the other ingredient (metenamine) which was only found in one of the samples. Thus, he hid from the investigative judge the fact that CSU had found differences in the explosives, and made him believe that that ingredient is always part of Goma 2. Only one year later was it found, through further research on the judge´s part, that he was lying. The chief then said that his lie was only an unimportant mistake. Does it mean that it isn´t important to him to find out which explosive was used, because he had previously an answer?

Next part... How did the terrorist go to the train stations: the hoax of the van and much more.

I`ve been wanting to write an interpretation post about ETA terrorism for days. But things keep happening, and it´s quite hard. And by interpretation I mean my personal conclusions, the state of mind in which the situation places me.

The recent news about the liasion between the government and the justice system supporting a rather weak position against ETA is only a part of a bigger scheme, IMHO. One in which:

- A new party with strong links (according to the police) to ETA was allowed to take part in the regional election in spring last year, while there´s a law to prevent it.

- Batasuna, an illegal group within the bigger ETA trust, organizes a congress and the government justifies not trying to prevent it until the last moment. When it´s last-minute forbidden, another act is “anonimously“ organized, the speaker of Batasuna speaks openly in its (and therefore ETA´s) name and the police doesn´t do anything.

- The Prime Minister says, about the above-mentioned congress, the law outlawing Batasuna is “too harsh“. While in the opposition, he proposed
this law to the government, and has been showing off ever since... ´til now, apparently.

- In the meantime, he is invited to an International Congress of Victims of Terrorism and doesn´t attend. Reportedly, he sent a letter to excuse himself but it
got lost. Who trusts the post in this country?

- Last week, he invited the organizers of the Victims´ Congress and told a woman whose dautghter lost both legs at the age of 12 that he “understands her because his granpa was killed during the war“. Thus implying that being killed in a civil war, with two sides fighting, is the same as being killed/mutilated in an unilateral act,
when one side kills and the other one (random victims are part of a side?) gets attacked.

Terrorism has gone from being weaker than ever to be almost legalized “de facto“. Another terrorist group which disappeared years ago killed again last week, a sign that what´s happening is good news only (or nearly only) for them and their friends.

And all that why? Because the government has been so stupid as to offer everything from the beginning. It´s like going to a bargaining market shouting how much you´re looking forward to spend bunches of money. No one will take you seriously. Mr. Zapatero gives, and gives, and gives, and gets nothing.

The last few weeks have been full of hearsay about a very near truce. Last Saturday ETA made a letter public and it said nothing about it. Only asking for more.

Even if there was a truce in the near future (better not trust a terrorist group when it says anything), I do not trust Zapatero to carry any negotiation. When the terrorists claim the only way to get “peace“ is that there aren´t winners and losers, it sounds to me as them being the real winners.

Sure, they would stop killing for a while. Most socialists claim that having not killed in over two years is a good-will sign. I´m persuaded otherwise: they can get more, right now, not killing. If they killed, public opinion wouldn´t let the government give them everything.

But they may start killing again whenever they want. For instance, if the government carried a stronger policy, or if there was any possibility that the opposition won the elections in two years.

Therefore, I have the feeling that the only way to avoid that blackmail on democracy is that they stop existing: defeated by police and justice and/or as a result of a negotiation where the government, and not them, has the upper hand.

When I was little, I found it funny (in a weird kind of way) how ETA terrorists were sentenced to thousands of years in jail.

Later, I understood that it was the way the justice system had to make sure they were forced to stay the 30 years maximum behind bars. Then, of course, convicts could benefit from a serie of reductions (good behaviour, work, studies) and be on the streets in a much shorter period of time. All of that without having regreted their killings nor apologized.

A few years ago, that law was changed (and probably improved, which wasn´t difficult). But of course, the old law has to be applied when the killings happened earlier.

Another aspect of the old law is that the punishment to all the crimes commited in the same period of time or under the same circunstances can be served at the same time. Adding salt to wound, defense attorneys use that to ask for a joint punishment for all the crimes of the same type, no matter what.

Meaning that, after you do something for 30 years in jail, you can do whatever you please, since you probably won´t stay in jail a single day more. The more you kill, the cheapest it is.

Last year, one of the worst terrorists asked that his 4.799-year-long sentence is put all together, so he would be free in 2009, after 20 years. Considering he murdered 82 people, including 5 children, he´d had served some 3 months for each person killed.

Not only has he not regreted it or apologized for anything. In 2002 he wrote a letter to fellow ETA members, suggesting they blew the National Bank, National Court and Madrid and Barcelona stock markets, that they steal military explosives.

After all, it´s the defense attorneys´ job to ask for that kind of stuff. As a matter of fact, another two terrorists have asked for that in the last times.

About the interpretation, public prosecutors are divided. Roughly said, prosecutors at the Supreme Court, the almost-last appelation court, support it, claiming it is the only one possible. On the other hand, prosecutors at the National Court want to apply it only when necessary (meaning when the crimes were really committed in the same period of time and/or under the same circunstances).

For instance, in the above-mentioned case, they suggest that, since there are two groups of murders, with two different groups and separated by a year gap, the terrorist should serve two 30-year-long periods. Therefore we could prevent him from being on the loose until 2034.

The boss of the prosecutors asking for that was the Chief Prosecutor of the National Court, the one “fired“ two weeks ago.

Interesting, huh?

Lots and lots of years ago, but already a bunch of years into democracy, a very important socialist, who was vice prime-minister at the time, said: "Montesquieu is dead".

Yesterday, the State General Attorney announced that Mr. Foungairiño, Chief Attorney of the National Court (a special Court for terrorism, drug, and big economic crimes) had quitted due to personal reasons. SGA is a kind of link between the Government and Attorneys.

It was later found out that the reasons hadn´t been personal at all. The SGA had called the CA and had let him choose: he got to either sign a letter that was already written, obviously not by him (the letter that talked about "personal reasons"), or a discipline proceeding would be opened against him because of some actions of the National Court regarding Al-Qaeda prisioners.

Today, after his earlier lie had been reported even by the Government-friendliest newspaper,the SGA answered that his patience had a limit and that there has to be a unity of action in the whole justice system.

I can see the point there. I wonder also though, where lies the limit between unity of action and justice control by the Government.

However he may have made other mistakes, the now former Chief Attorney has always stood firm against terrorism, may it be nationalist terrorism or state terrorism. He was one of the Iron Attorneys who refused to give up the investigation of state crimes against ETA terrorists in the 80s (the GAL murders). So it´s understandable that neither the socialists nor ETA are so fond of him. As a matter of fact, only a few days ago, a pro-ETA newspaper strongly criticized the National Court, probably because of its role in trying to prevent ETA-Congress two weeks ago. I´d like to think the Government isn´t as weak as to obey to every tiny order from ETA.

Strength against terrorism is so out of fashion.

Sorry if the spelling is wrong, I have absolutely no idea of hindi.

Just a quick note to send my condolences to the relatives and friends of the many dead in Katowice. My love to the Polish people, whom I really admire.

My condolences also to the relatives and friends of the five women who died on a bus accident in the East of Spain due to the bad (and by that I mean BAD) weather conditions and bus driver´s serious negligence.

On a brighter note, congratulations to all of the people in the warmer areas of Spain who have seen snow for the first time in who knows how many years. And yet, only half an inch in my town in the mountains

Congratulations too to the winners of the Goya, the Spanish Oscars. If you´re curious as to Spanish movies, this is some of the best done last year:

Secret life of words, by Isabel Coixet (Barcelona, 1960), 4 Goyas (Best film, best director, best original script, and best production)
Princesses, by Fernando León (Madrid, 1968), 3 Goyas (Best main and revelation actress, best original song).
Camarón, by Jaime Chávarri (Madrid, 1943), 3 Goyas (Best main actor and two technical awards)
Tapas, by José Corbacho (Barcelona, 1965) and Juan Cruz (no data on him), 2 Goyas (Best supporting actress and best novel director).
The Method, by Marcelo Piñeyro (Buenos Aires, 1953), 2 Goyas (Best supporting actor and best adapted script).
Ninette, by José Luis Garci (Madrid, 1944), 2 Goyas (Best artistic direction and some other technical stuff). But I still love him the most
Habana Blues, by Benito Zambrano (Sevilla, 1964), 2 Goyas (Best soundtrack).
7 virgins, by Alberto Rodríguez (Sevilla, 1971), 1 Goya (Best revelation actor).
Fragile, by Jaume Balagueró (Lleida, 1968), 1 Goya (Best special effects). This is the one starring Calista Flockhart (filmed in English).
Obaba, by Montxo Armendáriz (Navarra, 1949), 1 Goya (Best sound edition). This film will go to the Oscars.
Match Point, by... well, you know him. Best European film.
Lighted by the fire, by Tristan Bauer (Mar de la Plata, Argenitna, 1959), 1 Goya (Best film in Spanish). I think there´s always this difference made between Spanish films and films in Spanish to give South American movies the chance to get an award too. And in this case, the Best movie couldn´t have gotten Best film in Spanish award, since it was shot in English.

Exactly one year ago, in a neighbourhood in Barcelona, a huge hole 18 meters wide and 35 meters deep appeared out of nowhere, probably due to a negligence in the underground works.

Almost 1.300 people had to leave their homes and/or schools. One year later, 249 haven´t been able to go back home and are still living in hotels, rented appartaments and such.

After it all happened, the regional government was quite strongly critized by the opposition, which had ruled until two years before. But the regional president mentioned that the problem the opposition had was called “3%“ und, suddenly, it all went hush-hush. During the following weeks, it seemed ones or the others would unveil a whole scheme of corruption related to payments done to the government (3% of the costs) by business wanting to be chosen to do public works.

But the unveiling didn´t happen. And most media helped keeping it very low profile.

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A little literature will help

There is this novel in Spain, about a boy that guides a blind man and is forced to try and cheat him to survive. It´s called Lazarillo de Tormes.

One of the short stories in the novel is when the boy and the blind guy were sharing a few grapes. They had agreed to take only one at a time, in turns. Then, the blind guy started taking two at a time, and the boy, three.

The blind guy began to hit the boy, accusing him of stealing. The boy asked how did he know he was stealing, and he answered:

«Because I stole too and you didn´t complain».

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Those people away from their homes aren´t been given the due attention in the media. As a matter of fact, yesterday, one year before the aniversary, one Catalan newspaper had as a headline: “The underground will arrive in the Carmel –the neighbourghood–“.

Is that the most important thing happening?

Why are they so intent on hiding the governments failures?

Would the same thing have happened if the inhabitants of that neighbourhood weren´t mostly people from other parts of Spain?