WikiLeaks: US pressured Spain to shelve Iraq, Guantanamo cases

Nov 30, 2010, 9:19 GMT

Madrid - The US embassy in Madrid pressured Spain to shelve court cases against US government and military officials concerning incidents during the Iraq war and alleged torture at Guantanamo, according to WikiLeaks documents

The excerpts from secret US diplomatic documents leaked by the self-proclaimed whistleblower website at the weekend were published by the daily El Pais newspaper Tuesday.

The US ambassador to Spain from 2005-2009, Eduardo Aguirre, personally oversaw many of the attempts to influence the Spanish government and judiciary, according to the daily.

The cases were brought before Spain's National Court, which is known for its human rights investigations.

They dealt with the killing of Spanish cameraman Jose Couso during the Iraq war in 2003, with a Spanish judge seeking the arrest of three US soldiers; with allegations that CIA planes transporting terrorist suspects to Guantanamo had made secret stopovers at Spanish airports; and with alleged torture in Guantanamo.

The Spanish attorney-general, several National Court prosecutors and some politicians showed willingness to comply with the US requests, El Pais quoted the leaked documents as saying.

Attorney General Candido Conde-Pumpido told the daily that prosecutors had only supplied the US embassy with public data that it had requested.

The US embassy also tried to influence Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero's government into taking action against the growing criticism in Spain of the occupation of Iraq, the documents show.

El Pais was one of five newspapers to gain access to more than 250,000 secret US diplomatic documents leaked by the self-proclaimed whistleblower WikiLeaks.

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