The Government informed the president of the Congress of Deputies, Meritxell Batet, that it had the utmost interest in holding the meeting of the control commission for credits destined for reserved expenses – the official secrets commission – as soon as possible, if possible this week, after the appearance of the Minister of Defense this Wednesday, May 4, before the Defense Commission. “He is a here I catch you, here I kill you & rdquor ;, according to parliamentary sources consulted by EL PERIÓDICO. And it will take place the next day, Thursday 5.
Meanwhile, both Robles and Paz Esteban, secretary of state director of the National Intelligence Center (CNI), an entity on which the National Cryptologic Center (CCN) prepare their respective appearances based on the information provided by the CNI.
Problem: the data on the telephone interventions carried out with the authorization of the magistrate of the Third Chamber of the Supreme Court in charge of receiving the requests from the CNI -related to entries and records and access to communications, that is, suspension of fundamental rights- are classified matter.
On the other hand, according to the information provided by the Government, the telephone taps of the President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, and the Defense Minister, Robles, would be the result of “external” hacks & rdquor;that is, entities or persons outside any official institution.
According to the organic law of May 2002, regulating the prior judicial control of the National Intelligence Center, the magistrate, in accordance with the sole article, point 3, when adopting by reasoned resolution the granting or not of the requested authorization “will order what is appropriate to safeguard the confidentiality of their performances, which will be classified as secret & rdquor ;. That same article establishes that the person who submits the request to the magistrate of the Third Chamber of the Supreme Court -Pablo Lucas, since 2009, whose last renewal for five years took place in 2019- is “the Secretary of State director of the CNI to the competent magistrate & rdquor;
Paz Esteban, who joined the CNI in 1983, was appointed in 2017 head of the technical office of the director of the center, General Félix Sanz Roldán, to be promoted two years later, in June 2017, replacing Beatriz Méndez de Vigo, to Secretary General of the institution. Therefore, in the year of the referendum of October 1, 2017 and the previous events, both in the sphere of the resolutions of the Catalan Parliament and in the demonstrations of September 20, 2017, she acted as number two of the CNI. She was directly, side by side with General Sanz Roldán in the secret investigations into the events. And when Sanz Roldán resigned in 2019, she became Secretary of State director of the CNI on an interim basis until she was appointed director definitively, at the proposal of Margarita Robles, after the elections in April of that year. She formally took office on January 30, 2020.
close relationship
The Minister of Defense has forged a close relationship with Paz Esteban and have high regard for their professional worthas could be verified in Robles’ intervention last Wednesday, April 27, in the Congress of Deputies when responding to the parliamentary groups that denounced the telephone interventions of interventionist leaders with the Pegasus system, from the Israeli firm NSO.
Robles, according to sources close to the minister, is informed that the CNI obtained authorization to make telephone interventions to leaders of the ‘procés’, but assures that they were carried out individually, as required by law, with the authorization of Judge Pablo Lucas. However, it depends on the number of authorizations requested and during the time they took place to know if they were finally massive. “There can be many individual requests. Twenty requests for three interventions each are 60 telephones tapped, for example, it is close to the figure of 63 telephones listened to & rdquor ;, ironically a magistrate consulted by this newspaper.
But to go into details, since it is a secret matter and classified as such, as has been pointed out, a decision of the council of ministers should be produced in the sense of declassifying the papers in which the magistrate allows wiretapping.
Paz Esteban is going through a second wiretapping scandal. In 1983, when he joined the CNI, he worked for years, based in Madrid, on foreign intelligence matters as an analyst. At that time, the then Secretary of State director of the so-called Higher Defense Information Center (Cesid) was General Emilio Alonso Manglano. Around 1980, with unsophisticated methods such as the scanner, the Cesid began with its famous sweeps to spy on politicians, businessmen, journalists and King Juan Carlos I and his family.
The 1995 resignations
Asked Alonso Manglano during the judicial investigation of the illegal wiretapping on the wiretapping cabinet created in the Cesid, pointed out that in “its first phase from 1982 to 1984, non-professional equipment commonly known as scanners was used… In 1984 a professional team is acquired that increases the capacities & rdquor ;. The wiretapping scandal caused the Chain resignations of General Alonso Manglano, the Defense Minister, Julián García Vargas and the Vice President of the GovernmentNarcís Serra in 1995. And in May 1999, the Madrid High Court sentenced Alonso Manglano and the former head of the Special Missions Operational Group (AOME), Colonel Juan Alberto Perote, for illegal wiretapping between 1984 and 1991.
Related news
They were sentenced to six months in prison.. Another five agents of the service, to four months of arrest and six years of absolute disqualification and compensation to several affected by the wiretapping. Therefore, the use of the new systems – Pegasus from the Israeli company NSO Group or the brand new Predator from the Israeli company Cytrox – implies a sophistication of methods that have given continuity to a listening practice that has a long history in Spain. .
Israeli companies market their gadgets by offering their customers the assurance that they have been “tested in the field.” They explain that they are guaranteed because they have already been successfully used in Palestinian population control in the Gaza and West Bank territories.