CNI kept tabs on messages sent by king’s son-in-law

Spain’s intelligence service, the CNI, has reportedly documented scores of text messages and emails written by royal son-in-law Iñaki Urdangarin, all of which form part of the Nóos Institute court investigation. The information contained in the mails could be damaging to several parties.

Urdangarin reportedly sent humorous mails about current affairs to King Juan Carlos, Queen Sofía and his wife, Princess Cristina. Among the messages were jokes about former Prime Minister José María Aznar.

Sources at the CNI have denied that the Spanish intelligence service was monitoring any of Urdangarin’s messages, or that it has anything to do with the Nóos inquiry. But nine months ago, Barcelona anticorruption prosecutor Fernando Bermejo called his counterpart in Mallorca, Pedro Horrach, who is handling the Nóos case, to inform him that he had uncovered evidence concerning Urdangarin’s private communications.

The evidence was found in the office of Matías Bevilacqua, an Argentinean-born computer hacker, whose services were used by the CNI.

CNI sources deny the intelligence service was monitoring any of Urdangarin’s messages

Police shut down Bevilacqua’s company, CFLabs, when it emerged it was stealing personal information and selling it to third parties. Among items seized from Bevilacqua during the operation was a pen drive full of information relating to the Nóos embezzlement case, which is currently engulfing Spain’s royal family.

That information is reportedly contained in the sealed case file at the Palma de Mallorca court, which is investigating Urdangarin for allegedly diverting public money from his non-profit Nóos Institute to his private businesses.

Back in March, CNI director Félix Sanz Roldán admitted to lawmakers in Congress that the CNI used Bevilacqua’s services between 2000 and 2008, purely for forensic information that was unavailable from other sources.

Meanwhile, during another court case, Urdangarin was asked by a lawyer on July 17 whether it was “true that on a more or less monthly basis the intelligence services came to the institute to get a copy of the files?” The king’s son-in-law answered that “a backup was done of the weekly server.”

His ex-associate, Diego Torres, who is also under investigation in the Nóos case, reportedly said that he knew the CNI was tapping into Urdangarin’s messages, but that other personnel at the Nóos Institute were not aware of any monitoring.