MADRID, Dec. 14 (UPI) -- The Spanish prime minister has accused the previous government of destroying evidence relating to the March 11 bombings and of deceiving the public.
Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero told a parliamentary commission the government of Jose Maria Aznar destroyed all computer records relating to the attacks before leaving office, the Times of London reported Tuesday.
"In the Prime Minister's office we did not have a single document or any data on computer because the whole Cabinet of the previous government carried out a massive erasure," said Zapatero.
Testifying under oath, he said the previous government had also attempted to convince the Spanish people the Basque separatist group ETA had carried out the bombings, to influence the outcome of the elections three days later. This claim, he said, was a "massive deceit."
The current and previous governments have entered a vicious battle over the March 11 attacks in Madrid that killed 191 people.
The ruling Socialist party says Aznar's government attempted to conceal that Islamic terror groups were behind the attacks, fearing that the link to Aznar's deeply unpopular support for the Iraq war might cost the party the election.
