Spain intelligence head to brief Parliament panel

[October 30, 2013]  MADRID (AP) -- The head of Spain's intelligence services will give a closed-door briefing to a parliamentary committee about allegations that Spain was a target for surveillance by the U.S. National Security Agency, Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy said Wednesday. He did not announce a date for the session.

Rajoy made the announcement a day after NSA Gen. Keith Alexander told a U.S. told a House Intelligence panel that millions of telephone records of European citizens were swept up as part of a NATO program to protect the alliance's members but that that the U.S. did not collect the European records alone.

The reports of the alleged spying of political leaders and citizens led to an outcry of criticism across Europe last week.

Speaking in Parliament, Rajoy did not make any reference Alexander's comments but said Spain was taking the allegations of U.S. spying in Spain seriously. He reiterated that if confirmed, such activity is "inappropriate and unacceptable between partners and friends."

Up to now Spain insists it is unaware of any U.S. spying.

Meanwhile, two senior German officials are in Washington for talks as part of Berlin's effort to get to the bottom of allegations that Chancellor Angela Merkel's cellphone was monitored by U.S. intelligence.

Merkel's spokesman Steffen Seibert said Wednesday that her foreign policy adviser, Christoph Heusgen, and government intelligence coordinator Guenter Heiss were in the U.S. capital for talks but wouldn't say whom they would meet. Seibert said that the heads of Germany's foreign and domestic intelligence agencies will also visit Washington "in the coming days" but didn't give more details.

Rajoy said National Intelligence Center chief Felix Sanz Roldan would address the issue in a behind-closed-doors session of Parliament's official secrets commission. He did not say when Roldan would appear.

Quizzed Tuesday over whether Spain helped the NSA with its spying, Sanz Roldan would only say that he was forbidden by law to comment on relations with other intelligence services but insisted that Spain's agency always acts within the law.

Allegations of massive U.S. spying of its allies took a new turn on Monday when Spain's El Mundo newspaper published a document it claimed showed the NSA tracked more than 60 million phone calls in Spain in one month alone.

The report appeared the same day as the U.S. ambassador to Spain was summoned by the Foreign Ministry and told of Spain's concern.

The newspaper said the document was one those leaked by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden, who is wanted by the United States but has been granted asylum in Russia.

The paper published a photo of two Snowden documents Wednesday which it claimed showed that Spain and other countries cooperated with the NSA in its surveillance.

In Parliament on Wednesday, opposition deputies called on Rajoy to press the U.S. for explanations and to clarify if Spain helped the NSA and whether he personally had any part in it.

[Associated Press; By CIARAN GILES]

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