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Spain rejected Israeli 'dirty war' offer, author says
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Copyright ) 1997 Nando.net
Copyright ) 1997 Reuters
MADRID (November 30, 1997 10:29 a.m. EST http://www.nando.net) - Spain's
government rejected an offer from Israel's Mossad secret service in the
1980s to kill Basque separatist guerrillas at their bases in France,
according to a Spanish journalist's interviews with former police
officials.
Adolfo Suarez, Spain's first democratically elected prime minister after
the country emerged from dictatorship, refused to mount a "dirty war"
against Basque ETA guerrillas, said the newspaper El Mundo, citing a new
book by Pilar Urbano, a renowned Spanish journalist.
Suarez was not immediately available for comment.
In Urbano's new book, "I entered Spain's secret police," she quotes the
then chief of police as saying Israel's Mossad had offered to eradicate
ETA for Suarez.
Suarez, a centrist, took over as Spain's political leader just months
after General Francisco Franco's dictatorhip ended in late 1975.
"Mossad offered to mount a dirty war against ETA for Suarez, but Suarez
didn't want to," she quoted the police chief as saying.
He had met Mossad's head in Tel Aviv in 1980 where it was suggested
Spain attack ETA at its roots, its bases in the south of France, the
book said.
The revelation comes just one month after a Spanish prosecutor sought a
jail term for a former Socialist minister on charges stemming from a
so-called dirty war against ETA in the mid-1980s.
Spanish state prosecutor Jose Maria Luzon last month sought a 23-year
prison sentence for former Socialist interior minister Jose Barrionuevo,
accused of belonging to an armed group, kidnapping and misappropriation
of public funds.
The case is expected to come to court next spring.
Anti-terrorist Liberation Groups, known in Spanish as GAL, mounted an
illegal campaign of murders, bombings and kidnappings between 1983 and
1987, killing 28 suspected ETA activists -- at least one third of whom
were targeted by mistake.
ETA, the acronym of a Basque name meaning Basque Homeland and Freedom,
has killed over 800 people during its 29-year struggle for an
independent state encompassing parts of northern Spain and southern
France.
-- By TAHIR IKRAM, Reuters
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