A Madrid judge has opened an investigation into two agents of the Spanish Intelligence Service (CNI) for an alleged leak of classified information to the United States, the country’s defence minister has confirmed.
El Confidencial online news site said on Monday that two agents of the CNI were suspected of stealing and then selling information to the US, and had been arrested at the request of an investigative magistrate.
El País newspaper said the two agents had been arrested ‘in recent weeks’ for possibly revealing defence secrets.
‘Regarding the investigation, the facts were denounced by the CNI itself, and they are secret,’ Defence Minister Margarita Robles said during a visit to a military base in Latvia. Robles declined to give any further details.
‘This is information we have had for several days,’ Justice Minister Félix Bolaños said, during a visit to Brussels when asked about reports in El País and El Confidencial.
When questioned on the reports, Bolaños said that the ‘judicial process must follow its course’, without providing further details.
Article 584 of Spain’s Criminal Code states thar prison sentences of 6 to 12 years will be handed to any ‘Spaniard who, with the purpose of favouring a foreign power, association or international organisation, procures, falsifies, disables or reveals information classified as reserved or secret’.
It is not the first time that the Spanish secret service takes one of its agents to court for treason. In 2007, the CNI arrested former spy Roberto Flórez after classified documents and a letter addressed to the Russian secret services in which he offered to work for them in exchange for a first payment of $200,000 were found at several locations in Tenerife.
Un juzgado de Madrid investiga a varios agentes del Centro Nacional de Inteligencia (CNI) por filtrar presuntamente información confidencial a Estados Unidos, tal y como ha avanzado El Confidencial esta mañanahttps://t.co/Od5bTLIZTn
— El Confidencial (@elconfidencial) December 4, 2023
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