"Pure invention." That was the phrase which the former Spanish interior minister, Mr Jose Barrionuevo, repeated like a mantra to dismiss the evidence which finally brought him to the dock in the Supreme Court yesterday. The enormous white and green marble courtroom is the imposing venue for what is arguably the most explosive case against a senior politician since the death of Franco. Mr Barrionuevo, along with his deputy minister, Mr Rafael Vera, and the cream of his anti-terrorist high command, are charged with kidnapping, membership of an armed gang and misuse of public funds. Mr Barrionuevo and Mr Vera face 23year jail sentences if found guilty.
Mr Barrionuevo's problem is that 10 of the 11 other defendants admit their participation in the kidnapping, and the most senior officials implicate him and Mr Vera directly.
The 1983 kidnapping, on French soil, of Mr Segundo Marey, and his 10-day detention in miserable conditions in Spain, was the first action claimed by the GAL. These "Anti-terrorist Liberation Groups" killed 27 people, all but one in France, over the next three years. The GAL claimed to be responding to ETA's terrorist offensive, which caused many more deaths in this period. Like Mr Marey himself, however, many of the GAL's victims had no terrorist connections.
The group's not-so-hidden agenda was to "persuade" the French government to act against ETA members, who enjoyed a degree of immunity north of the border. Mr Barrionuevo agreed yesterday that French support for Spanish security policy was "virtually non-existent" in 1983, and that it had improved greatly by 1986, when the GAL's guns went silent. But he declared that he had "never committed, ordered or consented to any illegal action".
This stance sat uneasily with his admission in court that he had taken responsibility for a previous attempted kidnapping, by Spanish anti-terrorist police, of an ETA member in France. He said he believed that this earlier operation was a "humanitarian" venture designed to save the life of an army captain then held hostage by ETA.
In a curious phrase for an interior minister, he said he "did not have the curiosity about the details of police operations that some people have". Mr Barrionuevo certainly seems to have had remarkably little curiosity about the GAL's operations, repeating again and again that he "could not remember" communiques issued by the organisation. One of these communiques was in the handwriting of one of his most senior anti-terrorist lieutenants, Mr Julian Sancristobal . Mr Sancristobal has confessed to organising the kidnapping of Mr Marey, and last week told the court he had invented the acronym GAL, "because the words seemed resonant".
Mr Sancristobal, a former director of state security, has also told the court that Mr Barrionuevo phoned him on the night of Mr Marey's kidnapping. He alleges the minister had agreed that the victim should be held for a few more days, even though they now knew him to be innocent of any link with ETA, to keep the French authorities under pressure.
Mr Barrionuevo yesterday denied making this phone call, and said he believed the whole account of the kidnapping given by his 10 subordinates is "a pure invention". He said they were put under "unjust pressure" by the magistrate who first investigated the case, and that Mr Sancristobal lost his nerve when the magistrate was able to match his handwriting to a GAL communique; they stuck to their "surreal" version of the story in the hope of gaining legal benefits. Their account actually dovetails in most respects with the established facts of the kidnapping, but Mr Barrionuevo still believes in his accusers' innocence.
Who, asked a flabbergasted lawyer, did kidnap Mr Marey? The former minister of the interior had no information to offer on the subject. He then made an extraordinary gesture: "If it would exonerate my subordinates, I would be willing to incriminate myself, because I believe in the doctrine of the lesser evil, and the less innocent people who go to jail for this crime, the better."
The president of the 11 judges hearing the case reminded him that such an offer was entirely improper. The fact that the evidence against Mr Barrionuevo is almost entirely based on the word of other defendants undoubtedly weakens the case against him. His denials yesterday were ringing and robust, though his memory lapses were distinctly unconvincing.
The case is expected to continue for several weeks, with witnesses including the former prime minister, Mr Felipe Gonzalez, and the current deputy prime minister, Mr Alvarez Cascos.