Spanish death-squad suspect slurs investigative judge

Spain's former director of state security, Julian Sancristobal, triggered a row yesterday by suggesting that the judge investigating death squads plotted to bring down the Prime Minister, Felipe Gonzalez.

Mr Sancristobal, who is in detention as the chief suspect in an inquiry into the anti-terrorist GAL unit, accused the judge, Baltasar Garzon, on state television. "Last summer various persons, together with Garzon, decided that politically they had to reopen the [Gal] file ... to disrupt the political situation and finally to bring down Felipe Gonzalez," Mr Cristobal said, citing "testimonies of people I know". All the parties except the ruling Socialists and their Catalan allies rose as one in condemnation of Mr Cristobal's outburst, which they said was an attempt to weaken, even destroy, Judge Garzon and to interfere with the judiciary's independence.

Juan Alberto Belloch, Minister of Justice and the Interior, promised to explain in parliament how permission was given to state television to conduct the interview. A spokesman for the opposition Popular Party said matters that should properly be discussed in parliament and in the courts were being bandied about on state-controlled media.

Judge Garzon let it be known yesterday that he had neither authorised nor opposed the interview. The secretary of state for prisons, Paz Fernandez Felgueroso, defended the decision to allow government-sponsored cameras into the cells on the grounds that Mr Sancristobal, though in preventive detention, was not incommunicado.

It is unclear whether the decision to allow the interview to go ahead was a government attempt to weaken Judge Garzon that badly backfired, or just a clumsy mistake. It none the less marks an escalation in the tussle between the judge and the Socialists.The government has much to fear from Judge Garzon's quest to discover who organised the GAL death squads, which killed more than 20 members of the Basque Eta separatist group in the 1980s. Since the judge reopened the case last year two former policemen, Jose Amedo and Michel Dominguez, have claimed the whole GAL operation was orchestrated at the highest level of the Interior Ministry, and have fingered Mr Gonzalez as "Mr X", the man in charge.

Judge Garzon is trying to accumulate evidence against the interior minister of the time, Jose Barrionuevo, and his deputy, Rafael Vera. Last month the judge detained two other ex-policemen, Francisco Alvarez and Miguel Planchuelo, accused of assassination attempts, illegal detention and the illegal transfer of public funds. They are expected to testify soon that they were only obeying orders.