Newspaper spat over Madrid bombs ‘conspiracy’

Spain’s two largest newspapers, El País and El Mundo, have launched into a fierce row over their reporting of investigations into the Islamist train bombings that killed 191 Madrid commuters two and a half years ago. The outbreak of hostilities between the country’s most influential dailies follows the publication in El Mundo of a series of interviews with a small-time Spanish crook accused of supplying the explosives used in the bombings. In the interviews José Emilio Suárez claims the bombings hid what was effectively a coup d’état that brought the Socialist government of prime minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero to power. On Wednesday El País published part of a conversation between Suárez and his parents - apparently recorded by authorities during a prison visit - which it claimed showed El Mundo had paid him. Socialist-supporting El País accused El Mundo of ‘yellow’ journalism and stirring up conspiracy theories, including the idea that Basque group Eta may have been involved in the attacks. El Mundo yesterday denied paying Suárez and claimed El País had taken his words out of context. In a widening of the media war, privately owned radio stations have taken sides. The conservative ABC newspaper, the third largest Madrid-based daily, has also attacked El Mundo. (Media Guardian,September 15, 2006)

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