Most Spaniards believe Madrid inquiry has failed

20 December 2004

MADRID- Almost two-thirds of Spaniards want an independent inquiry into the 11 March Madrid train bombings, believing a parliamentary panel has failed to throw light on the massacre over five months of work, a new poll showed.

According to the poll by the Spanish daily ABC, 64.7 percent of those questioned want an independent committee to take over from the parliamentary panel which is investigating the worst terrorist attack in Spain’s history.

The poll was carried out on Thursday, the same day Spanish political parties rejected the idea of opening a non-political inquiry into the attacks, and a day after a representative for the victims of the families accused the panel of using the victims as “a political weapon between the parties”.

Both former prime minister Jose Maria Aznar and his successor Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero have appeared before the inquiry, with Zapatero accusing Aznar of misleading the population in trying to pin the blame for the blasts on Basque separatists.

Zapatero ridiculed the conservative Opposition Popular Party for blaming the armed Basque separatist group ETA even as evidence emerged fingering Islamic extremists seemingly bent on punishing Aznar’s pro-US policy over Iraq.

Zapatero’s Socialists, who won a general election three days after the attacks, have been in turn accused of turning the situation to their electoral advantage.

According to another poll published on Sunday in the left-wing daily El Pais 45.6 percent of Spaniards think the parliamentary panel has “achieved nothing”, while only 4.7 percent think it has made progress.
  
[Copyright EFE with Expatica]

Subject: Spanish news