Without surprise figures or breaks with the previous stage: saving Margarita Robles from any erosion, the Government has begun to close the crisis opened by the Pegasus case by appointing a new director of the National Intelligence Center to Esperanza Casteleiro LlamazaresSecretary of State for Defense, number two in the structure of the department he heads Oak trees.
The Executive has chosen a continuous line after the dismissal this Tuesday of Peace Stephen. Casteleiro, 65, is the government person who has been most in touch with the outgoing director, within the dynamic of “daily and multilevel” contacts between the center and the ministry confirmed by State Security sources.
“She is the CNI”said Minister Robles to define who not only her choice, she was also her chief of staff from June 2018 to June 2020. For the Minister of Defense, Casteleiro “has been working at the CNI for 40 years and knows everything, or almost everything“, he said, emphasizing when presenting it the endorsement of a long career in State intelligence. The figure chosen to suture this crisis in the espionage service is one of those who, in the structure of the Executive, received reports on the work of the CNI , and to which assumes knowledge of eavesdropping telephone who undertook the espionage service on independence leaders.
At all times, in the announcement she made today, Minister Robles has fought the concept of dismissal. In other words, in her opinion, Casteleiro arrives as a result of an “evolution” in the center. The Casteleiro’s profile is, in fact, very similar, if not parallel, to that of Paz Esteban: civil servant career forged over four decades of work in a service called CESID and that was refounded, civilized, feminized, prosecuted and changed its name from 2002 with both inside.
Wide experience
Esperanza Casteleiro has in her curriculum a decisive step for the secretary general of the National Intelligence Center, just like its predecessor Esteban. He held that position, the most important executive position in the center, between September 2004 and June 2008, at the time of the direction of Alberto Saizsecond civil chief of the service in an intermediate non-military direction that the CNI went through between the emblematic generals Emilio Alonso Manglano and Féliz Sanz Roldán.
It was with Manglano at the head of the service, and in 1983 -again as Paz Esteban-, who entered Casteleiro in the service as a civil servant analyst after leaving, like her predecessor and companion, the Faculty of Philosophy; in her case, she with a specialty in Education.
At the height of the socialist governments of Philip GonzalezCasteleiro was a young member of the Internal Intelligence Division of CESID, at that time devoted to the prevention of ETA terrorism. His contemporary Esteban was in the section that looked out.
Except for the strict compartmentalization in the center, the Interior division was the one that had the most contact with the Operational Group of Special Missions, AOME, the group of action spies, under the command of the controversial colonel Javier Perote (deceased in 2021), in charge of placement or neutralization of eavesdropping, among other delicate maneuvers.
Of all the candidates that have been handled these days, Esperanza Casteleiro -pointed out as successor by this newspaper- is the one who best knows the current CNI staff, since she was appointed head of the Human Resources Management Area. Before becoming a member of the leadership, she had assignments abroad in Lisbon and Havana.
In the Internal Intelligence Division, Casteleiro held another key position: that of head of the technical secretariat of that areaunder the control of another emblematic general of the intelligence service, Santiago Bastos Norenawho led a deaf internal fight against his fellow coup leaders after the traumatic experience of 23-F.
Before going through the general secretariat of the CNI, Esperanza Casteleiro was in charge of the Human Resources Management Area between 2002 and 2004. Since then he has known perfectly well the members of a generation of Intelligence officials, his own generation, whose time has come, somewhat late, to occupy leadership positions within the Center.
Technology
At the time of this appointment, Esperanza Casteleiro was in charge of various weapons and material acquisition policies at the Ministry of Defense, and was in close contact with the industry that served her. She headed various technological improvement projects for the Ministry’s cybersecurity structure, where various sources point to the concern that has lasted more than two years over the weaknesses of some flanks in terms of communications.
And within the framework of that work, he had shared important details with some sectors of the Ministry of the Interior. Her relationship with that other leg of the State was consolidated by being head of the CITCO Intelligence Unit, the Intelligence Center against Terrorism and Organized Crime, a mostly police body, but with a representation of the CNI that exercised precisely who from today is new director of the Center.
Related news
The international security situation, with the largest and most serious armed conflict on European soil since World War II, and the instability on the south-Maghreb flank of Spanish interests did not make a sudden change at the head of the CNI advisable. The possibility of an interim stage with the current secretary general of the center, Colonel Arturo Relanzonat the head of the body, awaiting an appointment that would gather broad political consensus.
Casteleiro testified as a witness in the trial that was held in a Madrid court against the former commissioner Jose Manuel Villarejo for slander against the CNI. The commissioner ended up acquitted. The new head of Spanish espionage -reports Tono Calleja- confirmed in the oral hearing that she had met with Villarejo, a fact that is reflected in the agendas of the former police commander.