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8 July 2004
PALMA – A sex scandal which has embroiled the conservative regional government in the Balearic Islands brought its first resignation Thursday.
Juan Carlos Alias, head of Ibatur, a Balearic tourist board has resigned.
The scandal involved a trip to a Moscow sex club, called Rasputin, by government officials who were supposed to be promoting tourism in the Spanish islands.
The government officials on the trip in February later tried to claim the expenses of visiting the club, which offers customers the chance to “chain-up slaves”.
Juame Matas, a member the conservative Popular Party and head of the regional authority, was exposed after an article in the Spanish daily Diario de Mallorca.
Matas allegedly spent cash in the sex club during a visit to the Russian capital in February which was supposed to promote the Balearic Islands.
The officials went to see a football match between the Spanish club Real Majorca and Spartak Moscow.
Matas bought seven tickets, at a cost of up EUR 129 each, for Rasputin, one of the best-known sex clubs in Moscow.
According to the newspaper, Matas claimed the cost of tickets as expenses.
Six people were on the trip to Moscow, including a number of representatives from the Balearic tourism board.
Of those, only Alias has so far resigned.
Antoni Diéguez, a Socialist deputy on the regional parliament, condemned the affair as “reproachable”.
He said: “We do not want to know what you are doing in your private life, but we believe it is highly reproachable that they charged the cost of a visit to a sex club to the public purse.”
[Copyright EFE with Expatica]
Subject: Spanish news