Espionage: Govern, Consell and Bitel

In the press conference held last Friday (24/3/2000) after the Cabinet meeting, the president of the Balearic Government, Frances Antich, and the Councillor for Technological Innovation, Misericòrdia Ramon, announced that they had denounced to the courts a presumed case of espionage by the previous Government presided by Jaume Matas, against the Building Committee of the Mallorcan Council.

According to the President and the Councillor, from 1998 a copy of all the e.mails sent to the Building Committee of the Mallorcan Council, led by Francesc Quetglas, was sent to the electronic mail svallori@gabpresi.caib.es belonging to Sebastian Vallori, a civil servant in the confidence of the previous Govern.

The facts were discovered by chance when the mail addresses belonging to officials of the previous Govern were cancelled, which made the general director of Relations with the Parliament of the Government, Valentí Valenciano, suspect that something was wrong when he sent an e.mail on March 17 to the actual president of the Building Committee of the Mallorcan Council, Rafael de Lacy, and received a message from the very server of the Govern, saying that the electronic mail svallori@gabpresi.caib.es was no longer in function.

The firm, Baleares Innovación Telemática, S.A. (Bitel) --with participation by the Govern, Telefónica and Sa Nostra-- are implicated in the matter as they controlled both the server of the Govern and the Consell. At the moment of the start of the denounced events, the president of Bitel was Rosa Estaràs, who occupied the vicepresidency of the Govern presided by Jaume Matas.

On Friday, the expresident of the Govern, and present leader of PP in the Balearics, Jaume Matas, denied any connection with the denounced events.

UPDATE (26/03/2000):
According to an internal report by Bitel, that came to light yesterday, the system chief of the firm states that the mail account "president@urbanisme.cim.net" was activated in February of 1998 with the "forward" to svallori@gabpresi.caib.es, without being able to determine the date when the said "forward" took place, nor the people involved in these facts.

From the Bitel report, it appears that the legal investigations should be centred on clarifying the moment the denounced event took place, to be able to proceed with the pertinent penal action against the people presumably responsible.

DEBATE: Do you think the Balearic Govern spied the Mallorcan Council's electronic mail? Find out, give an opinion, vote!

Date of publication: 25/03/2000

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