Security and Intelligence Spain Ex-CESID directors jailed for illegal phone-taps
01 March 2003
On 4 April 2003, two former directors of Spanish military intelligence service Centro Superior de Información de la Defensa (CESID) were found guilty of the "illegal interception of telephone communications" of the left-nationalist Herri Batasuna (HB) offices in Vitoria, in the Basque Country. Emilio Alonso Manglano and Javier Calderón received three-year sentences, a fine and are barred from public office for eight years. Two CESID officers who were deemed to be the material authors of the interceptions received sentences of two-and-a-half years, a fine and were barred from public office for six years. In finding Manglano and Calderón guilty, the court argued that having ascertained that "important issues" were discussed by the heads of operative groups with the director, and deeming that the surveillance of a political party for over three years was such an issue, it follows that the directors of CESID when the interception started (Manglano) and when they were discovered (Calderón) would have known about it.
The Vitoria tribunal was critical of central government's failure to disclose relevant documentation "that directly concerned the facts that were the object of the investigation and responsible persons" although proof of the interception activities existed. Interference with the office's phone lines was discovered by a Telefonic (Spanish national telephone company) technician on 31 March 1998, and confirmed by the then Defence Minister, Eduardo Serra (PP), in the Defence Commission of the Spanish Congress on 21 April 1998. Serra recognised the existence of CESID operations in Vitoria, and justified them on the basis of obtaining "valuable information on the activities of the structure to support ETA" (preceding the illegalisation of HB's successor, Batasuna, several years later in March 2003 under the Ley de Partidos Políticos) for being deemed to be part of ETA's support infrastructure.
CESID was a largely unaccountable body as a result of the absence of legislation to regulate its operation. A scandal broke in June 1995 after the newspaper El Mundo published extracts of conversations recorded by CESID, alongside evidence that several public figures, including King Juan Carlos, had been under telephone surveillance. The ensuing investigation and trial in Madrid found that CESID had listened to "an infinity of citizens for years" even when their topics of conversation were irrelevant to national security, in violation of the Constitution. Manglano and his head of operations Juan Alberto Perote were sentenced to six months imprisonment for the repeated crime of illegal phone-tapping, and five other CESID officers received four-month sentences.(1)
CESID was replaced on 7 May 2002 by a civilian intelligence agency, the Centro Nacional de Inteligencia (CNI). The CNI bill seeks to introduce greater accountability and control over intelligence activities by the executive (through a government commission responsible for setting the Centre's annual goals), judiciary (through the requirement that a Supreme Court judge authorise interception or entry into private premises) and Congress (through supervision by a commission that oversees the use of secret funds for police and secret services). Areas of secrecy will remain, particularly with regards to exchanges of information with foreign intelligence services and international bodies, if cooperation agreements have confidentiality as a condition, (see Statewatch vol 12 no 1). Spanish journalist Nacho García Mostazo notes in his book Libertad Vigilada that CIFAS, a body to rationalise the intelligence capabilities of the armed forces (army navy and air force), was created in late 2000, shortly before the CNI bill was approved. CIFAS is not regulated by any law, other than a ministerial order specifying its internal organisation. Mostazo notes that this lack of accountability, together with defence intelligence services' involvement in a secret long-term military intellig