MADRID, May 11 -- Deputy Prime Minister Narcis Serra Wednesday denied spending $750,000 of government money on a private investigation into the activities of former Banesto bank president Mario Conde.
'I had not heard about the existence of such a report until I read it in the paper this morning,' Serra told the Spanish radio station SER.
The El Mundo newspaper Tuesday claimed Serra had asked the former director general of the Civil Guard, Luis Roldan, to hire a private investigation agency to look into Conde's business dealings and possible involvement in arms deals.
Roldan disappeared three weeks ago as a judge prepared to bring corruption charges against him. In a secret interview with El Mundo last week Roldan threatened to release information that would damage the government.
'I will not go to prison alone,' he said.
Roldan showed El Mundo part of the official report, in English, and a bill for $500,000 from the Kroll Associates investigation agency in 1992.
He told the newspaper that copies of the report, known as the 'Dossier Crillon', were given to Prime Minister Felipe Gonzalez, Serra and former Finance Minister Carlos Solchaga.
Neither the then Interior Minister Jose Luis Corceura, nor the Secretary of State for Security, Rafael Vera, were informed of the investigation, according to Roldan.
Conde was last year widely reported to be grooming himself for a political career on the right wing, perhaps in the opposition Popular Party of Jose Maria Aznar.
But in December last year the Bank of Spain suspended share trading in Banesto and sacked Conde as his bank's shares slid on the market.
Gonzalez's minority Socialist government has been rocked by a series of corruption cases which have caused the resignations of two ministers and a secretary of state,
