Attorney general orders inquiry into alleged US spying activities in Spain

The Attorney General’s Office has ordered a preliminary investigation into the alleged spying activities by the United States intelligence agencies in Spain, Efe news agency reported Tuesday.

Quoting sources in the chief prosecutor’s office, the Spanish news service said that the inquiry will be geared toward determining whether any crime may have been committed in Spain.

Attorney General Eduardo Torres-Dulce, a government appointee, ordered his prosecutors who specialize in computer crimes to conduct the preliminary inquiry, the sources said.

On Monday, Foreign Minister José Manuel García-Margallo warned that if the Spanish government found that the United States had conducted espionage activities by tapping private phones calls and monitoring other communications involving private citizens – as documents leaked by former US intelligence contractor Edward Snowden purportedly show – it would hurt bilateral relations.

“It could break the climate of trust that has traditionally existed between our two countries,” he said.

US Ambassador James Costos, who was summoned to the Foreign Ministry on Monday, pledged to pass on Spain’s concerns to Washington.

Last week, EL PAÍS revealed that the National Security Agency (NSA) had tracked Spanish citizens’ telephone calls, text messages and emails while El Mundo on Monday published a story with information from whistleblowing journalist Glenn Greenwald stating that the NSA spied on 60 million calls in Spain between December 2012 and early January of this year.