There has been a new cause for uneasiness -one more- here in the criminal process about the Madrid bombings which happened on March 11th, 2004. A report by some of the best Spanish scientific policemen about March 11th bombings contained a reference to ETA. Basically, the report said that there was a relationship between El Haski, one of the Moroccans charged with the bombings (detained in Lanzarote, Canary Islands on December 17th, 2004), and ETA, because police found boric acid in the home of the Islamist terrorist and in an apartment of an ETA command in Salamanca in 2001. But the bosses of the scientific experts falsified the report, which had striking errors, such as the different number of pages (the original had three, while the falsified had only two, but insisted in having also 3) and also had some corrections made in the Central Registry of the Books of Proofs of the Scientific Police with Tipp-ex..
In it, the experts said:
“As it has not very often intervened in terrorist acts and as we ignore the true way to apply it in connection with these deeds, there are a few possibilities: it was use to conserve explosives of organic type; to hide the explosive as a way to obstruct the labour of dogs specialized in the search of explosives, etc. makes as consider the possibility that the author/s are related between them or have had been trained the same way or are they themselves the author/s“.
When these news broke out, all the MSM in favor of the Government, laughed about the report, because boric acid can be found, for example, in products to control or diminish feet odour. Even the leftist star-anchorman Iñaki Gabilondo interviewed
General Chief of National Police, Miguel Ángel Santano (left), who, dressed in his dark-blue uniform, said that “the scientific literature had never related it to any explosive“. But later it was discovered that US Patents certified that there were explosives which were made with boric acid.
According to the United States Patent and Trademark Office, the Baracitol, an explosive which figures in its registry with number 3956039, is an explosive composed by ortoboric acid -a synonim of the boric acid- and the TNT, in which the boric acid, has a proportion of the 40% of the total product, and would be used to make it more stable.
But that is not the only explosive built with boric acid. There are, at least, 16 more. One of them is the Amonal, very used by ETA commands.
The General Secretary of the Scientific police, Mélida told Judge Garzón, the Judge in charge of the investigation, that when Ramírez, boss of the three scientific policemen, presented him the report, he told him its authors should change it. That same day, Ramírez told him that the scientific policemen were not going to change it and so, he reasigned it to himself, study it and make another report.
Mélida assured also to Garzón that he told his decision to the General Chief of National POlice, Miguel Ángel Santano, and that the latter told him that there were no problem. According to this police boss, the order to erase the references in a scientific report is one of his competences and it is part of the “quality control” stablished by the General Commandment of the Police. This one, though, only lets the correction of reports in a technical or scientific level. Mélida also assured that if they should have sent the report of the three scientific experts, the Scientific Police would have been discredited. So they sent one who was falsified.
Juez Garzón then closed the case considering that “there was no criminal relevance” of this discovery. In its resolution, Garzón considered that the bosses had no responsibility.
But later the National Court declared Garzón incompetent to handle the case, so Garzón had to stand aside and the case was handed on to Gema Gállego. The latter, candidate for the Conservative Professional Association of the Judges to a seat in the General Council of the Judicial Power, was rejected by Garzón (Socialist) and begun to investigate this case after the denounces presented by the “the March 11 Victims Support Association” and the Platform “Spain and Freedom” against the bosses of the three scientific experts, whose lawyers asked for the annulment of the criminal process handled by Garzón. This petition was based on the facts that the three of them had been called to declare as witnesses -no lawyer and obligation to declare the truth- and lately, after several hours, were charged with a crime of falseness in public document, punished by Spanish Penal Code wth prison punishment between 3 and 6 years. Even the General Council for the Judicial Power investigated these facts.
So Judge Gállego has finally charged both Ramírez, the direct chief of the scientific polimen, and Pedro Luis Mélida, the chief who just erased all the references of ETA to the report of the boric acid. So we will wait the results of everything.
Conclusions: does this mean that March 11th attack bombings were made by ETA? In my view, and solely taking into account this proof, I would say that no, particularly because there is no evidences of what exploded on March 11th as police has said that, in some cases, there is no rest of the explosives that were in the trains. What it’s very clear now is that the Government does not want ETA to be in any of the documents of the investigation of the March 11th bombings. The so-called peace process must go on, whatever the consequences -and its causes-.
In the case that they collaborated, does this diminish the danger for Islamist terrorism? Not a cm / an inch. Islamic terrorism is a part of international terrorism and traditionally they have been allied, since the 60’s as a way to throw down the Capitalistic States and impose dictatorships, whether they be religious or communist ones. For example, ETA has had relations with Chávez’s Government, Colombian terrorists, Cuban Government, with IRA terrorists, the Palestinian Liberation Front, one of its branches is AlFatah -the well-known terrorist group founded by Nobel Peace Price Winner Yasir Arafat -since the 70’s has been training ETA terrorists-, Argelia, where ETA terrorists trained themselves with the Argelian police and talks were maintained between Spanish Government and ETA-, Lybian dictator Ghadafi -their relation was not very long though because of the international reject to the Lybian regime after Lockerbie- and, according to Socialist Spanish Congressman Estella, also with Islamic terrorism, back in 2001-. If a real alliance is created between these groups, it would be even worse, as they are going to have much more information and possibilities to commit terrorist attacks. Does this mean that they really collaborated? I repeat it again: no, it does not mean they actually collaborated, but that it’s wrong to say Islamic terrorists do not maintain relations with infidel terrorist groups.
But there is another question that we have to ask: if ETA had any part in them, whether as an author or as a merely organizational supportive organization, would also the Socialist Government be hiding Spanish people that information? The fact that Zapatero was negotiating with ETA (as confirmed by Basque Socialist Eguiguren to ETA founder Julen Madariaga and told by Batasuna leader Fernando Parrena) before the 2004 elections -in fact 5 years from now, that is since 2001– and the menace, on February 14th, 2004, of ETA terrorist leader Josu Ternera (accused of giving the order to commit the terrorist attack to a Civil Guards’ home in Zaragoza, which killed 11 people, 5 of them children of very little age) “Spanish people are going to know what we are able to do” do not help this of course. And the case of the boric acid report also has shown Garzón in his true nature: as a real supporter of Socialist Government as he was when he presented himself as No. 2 in the lists for being elected as Congressman for the Socialist Party, being the No. ex-President Felipe González.
There is also clear that some Police Chiefs has nothing to do but to correct reports that are not even binding to the Judges. Judges in Spain can appreciate all the presented proofs in general and reject one if the rest of the others do not make that relevant. So, why this correction to a non-binding report? That is what strikes me more of the case. If it’s not relevant, why so much revolt, corrections, etc?
Looks like there are more corrected reports related to March 11th bombings (thanks to Anghara).
[…] explosions, Sánchez Manzano (more than 30 years in the force and the main actor in the polemic about the boric acid) did not keep the explosives […]