SPAIN'S former Civil Guard head, once the country's most wanted fugitive, made good on threats to reveal state secrets yesterday testifying that a 1980s "dirty war" against Basque rebels was government policy.
Mr Luis Roldan told the Supreme Court that the former Socialist prime minister, Mr Felipe Gonzalez, knew about the secret campaign against Eta (Basque Homeland and Freedom), court sources said.
He said Mr Gonzalez's former interior minister, Mr Jose Barrionuevo, had told him in 1990 that the prime minister was aware of it.
"He knew everything about it," Mr Roldan, who is charged in connection with the kidnapping of a Basque businessman, told the court.
Mr Gonzalez has maintained he was unaware that death squads, known as Gal (Anti Terrorist Liberation Groups), were operating on the fringes of Spanish security forces. Gal killed 27 people, a third of them unrelated to Eta, between 1983 and 1987.
Earlier this month the Supreme Court cleared Mr Gonzalez of involvement with the death squads, but indicted Mr Barrionuevo on charges of setting them up.
Mr Barrionucvo, a close ally of the former prime minister, rejected Mr Roldan's assertions and told journalists yesterday that he was in France at the time of the alleged meeting.
"The evening that he says that we met, I was giving a press conference at the Spanish embassy in Paris," Mr Barrionuevo said. The court sources said Mr Roldan had not provided any documents to back his claims, but had specified the dates and places of meetings he had with various officials to discuss the Gal.