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5 May 2004
MADRID – A Spanish parliamentary panel will investigate the 11 March terrorist attacks in Madrid after an agreement between the governing Socialists and the main opposition Popular Party, it was announced Wednesday.
According to the leader of the Socialists in the lower house, Diego Lopez Garrido, the commission will not limit its investigation to the period from the day of the attacks to the 14 March general elections, but will also address the causes of the attacks and their consequences.
The object of the panel is to “learn everything” about the 11 March bombing of four passenger trains in Madrid during the morning rush hour to prevent another similar incident and improve anti-terrorism efforts, he told a press conference.
After announcing his support for a parliamentary investigating commission, the leader of the conservative PP, Mariano Rajoy, said the aim should be “to find out what everyone did” from the time of the bombing attacks to the general elections, which the Socialists won in an upset.
Following the attacks, the-then-PP-controlled government initially blamed the attacks in which 192 people died on the Basque terrorist group ETA.
But the evidence later pointed clearly to fundamentalist Islamic terrorists.
This led many to accuse former Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar’s administration of hiding information.
Rajoy stressed Wednesday that “the PP has always told the truth and that will be proven,” and indicated that all members of the previous administration were eager to appear before the commission.
Meanwhile, the results of a survey by the Centre for Sociological Research released Wednesday indicated that the 11 March attacks did not influence the way 78 percent of Spaniards voted in the elections that took place three days later.
The attacks reaffirmed the decision of 53.8 percent of those surveyed to vote for their favourite candidates, prompted 21.9 percent who otherwise would not have gone to the polls to do so, and swayed 13.5 percent of voters to switch their vote, the survey found.
[Copyright EFE with Expatica]
Subject: Spanish news