The Government will declassify secret information about the espionage - with judicial authorization - that the National Intelligence Center (CNI) carried out on pro-independence politicians in view of the appearance of the former director of the secret service, Paz Esteban, before the Barcelona judge investigating the known as the Pegasus case.
Esteban's court appearance was scheduled for this Wednesday, but has been postponed until the end of January after the State Attorney's Office appealed. The former director of the CNI is obliged to comply with the Official Secrets law, which affects everything that is known to her due to the position she held, until she was dismissed. In principle, she could not provide the judge with any details of the case that were protected.
However, if the Government declassifies information on the matter, as requested by the head of the investigating court number 29 of Barcelona, Santiago García, Esteban could answer the instructor's questions that cover the declassified documents. And this is what the Government says it is studying.
Interior Minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska says the declassification of documents will be possible if "it is understood to be timely, reasonable and in accordance with the law." For her part, the head of Defense, Margarita Robles, has said that it is "quite likely" that there is information that will be declassified before the statement of the former director of the CNI.
Government sources assume La Vanguardia that the declassification will take place. According to these sources, the information that the Government intends to declassify is in principle the same as what Paz was offering in the Official Secrets Commission, where he appeared behind closed doors for more than three hours in May of last year. There, he offered the deputies the judicial orders for the telephone interventions carried out by the CNI on 17 independence leaders.
The members of the Commission had in their hands confidential documents that included the owner of the stolen telephone, the corresponding judicial authorization, and the justification for it. With this, Esteban intended to demonstrate that the CNI acted scrupulously in accordance with the law, and that espionage had never been carried out on a massive scale and without judicial control.
The director of the CNI did not recognize in that appearance that the system used to carry out the espionage was the Israeli Pegasus virus, relying on the law itself that regulates the National Intelligence Center. This rule states that the Secrets Commission may have access to the materials, but not to the sources and means used.
