3/11: Lavandera talks to EL MUNDO

Following Trashorra's interview, this week EL MUNDO publishes an excerpt of the new book co-written by former protected witness Francisco Javier Lavandera and journalist Fernando Múgica.

Lavandera (incorrectly written Lavandero or El Lavandero), who served in the Spanish army special forces and then worked as a mercenary in Africa, confirms that Toro and Trashorras asked him to transport explosives for ETA in 2001.

He though it was simply a bait: "who could say such a thing outside the Nationalist environment of the Basque country?". Toro and Trashorras told him that they could source a big amount of dynamite, that they were supported by important people and that the Police would not be a problem.

At that point, Lavandera simply did not believe it. However, some days later Toro casually met and showed him about 50 kg of Goma-2 and detonators that he carried in his car. Lavandera inmediately denounced the facts, but the only thing he could get was an almost so inmediate visit of two Police officers that threatened to kill him if he linked again Toro to ETA: "if you link Toro to ETA or you denounce something about it, you are a dead man. We cut your throat".

However, Lavandera arranged to meet near his house an agent of the other Nation-wide Spanish Law enforcement corps, the paramilitary Civil Guard. He told him that Toro and Trashorras were trafficking with explosives and that "they also looked for someone that could detonate bombs using mobile phones"; though frigtened, he avoided to add that they were doing those tasks for ETA.

This Civil Guard agent, called Jesús Campillo, carried a concealled device that registered the conversation, which remained recorded in a tape until it was leaked to the public opinion in November 2004.

His testimony matches the information contributed by a petty crimminal nicknamed Nayo, who, Lavandera believes, was the one that finally transported the dynamite to the Basque country. He also thinks that Jesús Campillo investigated his clue and got a good deal of data, but that he was finally stopped by his superiors: "[P]oor Campillo is still ashamed of the action of the Civil Guard. His conscience is killing him. I am not a psychologist, but he is pale and emaciated. This affaire may finish him."

All this data and other testimonies prompt the conclusion that there was in Asturias an alleged infrastructure to source explosives, tolerated and protected by the Police, set up initially, perhaps, in order to act as a bait for criminals and terrorists.

Asturias is a Spanish region, where leftist extremists and trade unions of the public mining industry have always had great influence. It is also a place where some of those extreme Left members have embraced Islam, and where lives Fernando Huarte, a Spanish Intelligence service agent and Socialist Party Official with links to Muslim organizations and radicals, such as Abddelkrim Benesmail.

This warrants some serious reading. Thanks for the ping.

This is starting to resemble our Oklahoma City bombing in many ways. That conspiracy was thoroughly riddled with informants for various agencies. The informants seem not to have been aware of one another, and the various agencies seem not to have been communicating with one another, which is in fact part of the problem.

But it seems that, in any meeting of the conspirators, half the people there were informants for one agency or other.

Another element is that the conspirators were members of various homegrown radical racialist groups, but behind them seem to be muslim and possibly Iraqi agents. This connection was the first thing to be denied by the official investigation, but in fact seems to be true based on information that has leaked to the public by the various informants. This was prior to Bush; the administration of the day was not prepared to deal with muslim terrorism and so simply denied its existence.

But the official investigation and trials have carefully focused on only two conspirators, and has carefully avoided looking past them to their co-conspirators.

Thanks for keeping me informed on this. This may be more than Spain's 911, this may be Spain's OKC.

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