Diplomatic Briefing
Your exclusive news aggregator handpicked daily!Archive for Spain
Newsline: Spain says embassy policeman found dead in Yemen
The Interior Ministry say a Spanish policeman stationed at the country’s embassy in Yemen has been found dead with a gunshot to the head. A ministry statement says the death of 38-year-old Antonio Cejudo was being investigated. It would not say if the case was being treated as a suicide. Cejudo had been missing for several days. His body was found in a hard-to-reach mountainous area, and his service revolver was by him. Cejudo had been stationed in Yemen for two years. The alarm was raised when Cejudo failed to arrive in Madrid on Thursday as planned for a few days of vacation.
http://www.foxnews.com/world/2012/05/22/spain-says-embassy-policeman-found-dead-in-yemen/
Newsline: Spanish embassy guard goes missing in Yemen
A Spanish embassy guard in Yemen has gone missing while driving to the airport to fly home to Spain for a holiday, a Western diplomat in the capital Sanaa said. “We lost of track of him on Thursday. The only thing we know is that he never took the plane to Madrid. We don’t know yet if he was kidnapped – no tribes have contacted us – but obviously it is very disturbing,” the diplomat told Reuters. Spain’s Interior Minister Jorge Fernandez Diaz told Spanish radio he was aware of the disappearance of the 38-year-old Spaniard but could not give any further details.
http://www.jpost.com/Headlines/Article.aspx?id=270728
Newsline: US Embassy in Madrid interviewed Colombia prostitute
Nearly four weeks after the Secret Service prostitution scandal erupted, U.S. government investigators on Thursday interviewed the Colombia prostitute at the center of the affair, which cost eight officers and supervisors their jobs and became an election-year embarrassment for the Obama administration. Dania Londono Suarez voluntarily met with investigators at the U.S. Embassy in Madrid, agency spokesman Edwin Donovan said. He said the Secret Service investigation was nearly complete. More than 200 people, including most of the women involved, have been interviewed in the United States and Colombia. Londono mysteriously disappeared days after the incident and couldn’t be reached by investigators. In a radio and television interview from Madrid on May 4, Londono said she works as a prostitute in Colombia, catering to foreigners. She said after leaving Colombia, she spent some time in Dubai before going to Madrid. Londono said she met a Secret Service employee at a club in Cartagena, Colombia, last month and escorted him back to his hotel after a night of heavy drinking. “I told him it would be $800 and he said that was fine and not a problem,” Londono said in Spanish. But the next morning the officer refused to pay, offering her only about $30 for a taxi. Londono said she was insulted and tried for several hours to get paid, eventually asking a local police officer at the hotel for help. She said the argument ended when other Secret Service officers at the Hotel Caribe paid her about $250. The officers were in Colombia in advance of President Barack Obama’s arrival for a South American summit. Prostitution is legal in Colombia. A dozen employees have been implicated since the April 12 argument became public. Eight people, including two supervisors, have lost their jobs. The agency is moving to permanently revoke the security clearance for one other employee, and three others have been cleared of serious wrongdoing. Twelve military personnel have also been implicated. Londono left Colombia a few days after the incident and she said last week she said he had not been contacted by the Secret Service or anyone from the U.S. government. She described the officers involved as “fools” and said the whole situation could have been avoided if the man she spent the night with had just paid her.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/colombia-prostitute-at-center-of-secret-service-scandal-interviewed-at-us-embassy-in-madrid/2012/05/10/gIQAEDgLGU_story.html
Newsline: Guatemala charges former police official Spanish embassy fire
A Guatemalan judge has ordered a former national police official to stand trial in the deaths of 37 people killed by a fire at the Spanish Embassy in Guatemala in 1980. Indian demonstrators had taken over the embassy to call attention to rights abuses during Guatemala’s 1960-1996 civil war. Security forces attacked and set fire to the embassy. The charges claim former police official Pedro Garcia Arredondo refused requests by the Spanish ambassador to withdraw police from the embassy and allow firefighters in to extinguish the blaze. Among those killed in the fire was the father of Nobel Peace Prize laureate Rigoberta Menchu.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/guatemala-charges-former-police-official-in-1980-spanish-embassy-fire/2012/04/30/gIQAg28ksT_story.html
Newsline: Spanish embassy in Zimbabwe cancels cultural programmes
The Spanish Embassy has cancelled all its cultural programmes following the death of its ambassador to Zimbabwe, Pilar Fuertes Ferragut in a car accident last Monday while on holiday in Namibia. The announcement was made by the embassy in a statement via the electronic mail to those who had been invited to the cultural programmes. “Due to the sudden and tragic passing away of H.E. Pilar Fuertes Ferragut, Ambassador of Spain, please be advised that all cultural activities of the Embassy of Spain have been cancelled until further notice,” reads one of the e-mail. In another e-mail, mourners were informed to visit the embassy and sign their condolences messages in a Book of Condolences which ends today. The events cancelled include the reading of the Young Women’s Open Forumand “The Trek and other stories,” written by Lawrence Hoba as part of their Second Edition of the Book Club, which were supposed to have been held on April 3 and 4 respectively.
http://www.thezimbabwean.co.uk/news/world-news/57567/spanish-embassy-cancels-cultural-programmes.html?utm_source=thezim&utm_medium=homepage&utm_campaign=listarticle&utm_content=textlink
Newsline: Car Accident kills Spanish Ambassador to Zimbabwe
The Spanish Ambassador to Zimbabwe has been killed in a car crash while on a visit to Namibia on Monday. The Spanish embassy announced on Tuesday Ambassador Pilar Fuertes Ferragut who doubled up as the Spanish envoy to Zambia and Malawi died in a fatal accident. “The Spanish Embassy wishes to inform you of the tragic passing away of H.E. Pilar Fuertes Ferragut… in a car accident on Monday afternoon,” said a statement signed by embassy official Romée Fisher. The statement added that “all cultural activities of the Embassy of Spain have been cancelled until further notice.” Ambassador Ferragut was accredited to Zimbabwe in March 2009.
http://www.zimeye.org/?p=50347
Newsline: Spain says it wants to close embassy in Syria
In Madrid Spain’s foreign ministry said it intends to close its embassy in Syria to protest brutalities carried out by Assad’s government. Foreign Minister Jose Manuel Garcia-Margallo said Spain is aiming to shut the embassy as soon as Tuesday, but the decision depends on the outcome of a meeting of the European Union’s Political and Security Committee in Brussels. He said Spain would maintain two or three diplomats in Syria as part of the EU delegation. Spain recalled its ambassador to Syria last month. Britain, Canada, France, and the United States have already closed their embassies in Damascus.
http://www.newsday.com/news/nation/after-putin-victory-russia-s-syria-stance-remains-1.3581723
Newsline: Ex-Slovenian ambassador to Spain charged with sexually abusing his 3 daughters
A Slovenian prosecutor has charged the country’s former ambassador to Spain with sexually abusing his three daughters. Slavko Ozbolt, the prosecutor in the coastal town of Koper, said Tuesday that details from the indictment could not be revealed. Peter Reberc — who faces up to eight years in prison if convicted — is charged with repeatedly abusing his daughters between 2005-2007, when two of them were under 15 years old. The report says Reberc’s wife reported him to the police. Reberc, a former politician, became ambassador to Spain in 2008, but was fired from the foreign ministry in 2010 for allegedly embezzling embassy funds.
http://www.680news.com/news/world/article/335634–ex-slovenian-ambassador-to-spain-charged-with-sexually-abusing-his-3-daughters
Newsline: Spain, Italy recall ambassadors from Syria
Spain and Italy on Tuesday recalled their ambassadors to Syria for consultation in light of latest political events in that country. Spain announced that it has recalled ambassador Julio Albi for consultations over state of insecurity and exacerbate violence against civilians in Syria. Also, Spanish minister of foreign affairs Jose Manuel Garcia-Margallo will summon Syrian ambassador in Madrid to hand him a condemnation letter to the actions of Syrian regime’s armed forces, added the statement. In the same context, Italian minister of foreign affairs Giulio Terzi said, in an official statement, that his country had recalled its ambassador to Syria for consultation, noting that the Italian embassy in Damascus would still be operating in order to help its citizens residing in Syria and follow the latest updates on current political crisis. Also, the statement noted that the Italian government summoned the Syrian ambassador late evening on Monday to express the strongest condemnation and disappointment of the “unacceptable” violence that the regime was using against civilians.
http://www.kuna.net.kw/ArticleDetails.aspx?id=2220033&Language=en
Newsline: Pro-Palestinians occupy Spanish embassy in Athens
A group of Spanish activists from an international flotilla banned by Greek officials from setting sail for the Gaza Strip continued to occupy their country’s embassy in Athens for a second straight day Wednesday, embassy officials said. Embassy officials said four activists were currently inside the embassy as part of a ‘symbolic occupation,’ while another 17 were gathered at the entrance outside. The activists had draped a Palestinian flag from one of the embassy’s balconies. The group of 21 Spanish activists are from the Spanish boat Gernica, which has been docked on the southern Mediterranean island of Crete for the past few weeks, awaiting an opportunity to sail. The Spanish activists insist they will continue to ‘peacefully’ occupy the premises of the embassy until their government asks Greek authorities to allow them to sail to Gaza. Greek authorities have banned a 10-vessel flotilla, loaded with aid and carrying several hundred pro-Palestinian activists from 22 countries – including Greece, Canada, France, Spain and the United States – from sailing towards Gaza.
