BOMBING DECEPTION EVEN WORSE THAN WE THOUGHT?….It’s pretty well established by now that Jos? Mar?a Aznar’s PP party did its best to mislead the Spanish people about who was responsible for last Thursday’s bombing because they thought blaming ETA would help them politically. They have since gotten their reward at the polling booth for this deception.
But it turns out it’s even worse. Here’s what the Financial Times reports from German authorities:
Its federal criminal bureau said the Spanish authorities intentionally withheld information and misled German officials over the explosives used in the Madrid bombings. The Spanish conservative government had insisted the Goma 2 Eco dynamite for the explosives had been frequently used by Eta, the Basque separatist movement. On Monday, it admitted that was not the case.
They didn’t just mislead their own people, they also endangered the investigation itself by misleading other crime agencies. Since the group behind the bombings was spread throughout Europe, cooperation with other police forces was essential to quickly cracking the case. Playing games in a case like this really did have the potential to let the bombers get away.
I’d say Aznar and the PP have gotten exactly what they deserved.
UPDATE: Aznar tries to defend himself here. UN Secretary General Kofi Annan isn’t buying it.
