#SanJavier #Murcia :TRAINER AND CADET KILLED IN PLANE CRASH

A military C-101 jet, on a training flight that left Murcia San Javier on Thursday, crashed into a field in the town of Meco, near Madrid, before it was scheduled to return to San Javier as part of a routine training flight.

Two military officers, a Captain and Lieutenant Instructor, who have not yet been named until their families have been notified, were killed in the crash.

Update: The pilots are named as Captain Julio Castellón, born in Madrid in 1977, and officer Eduardo Castillo, from Tenerife, serving his fourth year at San Javier.

The 112 emergency centre received a call at around 11:00am and officers from the Guardia Civil were quick to attend, along with emergency ambulances and the fire service. Human remains were all that were found at the wreckage, located in a field near the Alcalá-Meco prison, around 40 kilometres from Madrid. 

Investigators state that the saw the two occupants tried to eject from the aircraft as their parachutes were deployed. The wreckage was spread over a wide area and forensic teams were meticulously collecting the evidence to allow investigators to ascertain the cause of the tragedy. It was thought that one of the pilots survived the initial impact, but both were confirmed as dead.

The C-101 training aircraft is the most popular choice for trainee pilots, having been operational for around 30 years and seen around 2,000 pilots successfully make the transition to become air force pilots. It has a top speed of 770 kilometres per hour at 8,535 meters and can accommodate a pilot and a student.

Similar to the Hawk in build and design, it is built entirely in Spain by CASA and its reliability, ease of use, low cost of operations and comprehensive instrumentation make it a very suitable aircraft for flight school and acrobatic flights, according to the Air Force. The aircraft is used in display by the Patrulla Águila, the Spanish equivalent to the British Red Arrows.


http://www.theleader.info/article/34023/spain/national/san-javier-trainer-and-cadet-killed-in-plane-crash/

#Spain: Ex - Pats #NHS Crackdown - Health Minister announces crackdown on foreigners using the Spanish Health Service

Fri, 20 Apr 2012

The cabinet on Friday decided to crack down on foreigners using the Spanish Health Service as part of an additional 7 billion € of cuts. They intend to toughen the conditions for inclusion on the Padrón census. Minister for Health, Ana Mato, said ‘We are going to end the abuses committed by some foreigners’. She is going to change the Ley de Extranjería which intends to put a limit to the so-called ‘health tourism’, which has seen family members of foreign residents to come to Spain ‘exclusively’ to receive health attention. Ana Mato insisted that from now it will not be so easy to come to Spain, sign the Padrón census, and obtain a health card, as it has been. ‘Just getting on the Padrón they all had the right to the health card’, said the Minister. ‘Now there will be a series of additional requirements when the Padrón is issued’. She said to guarantee the universality of the Health Service ‘for all the Spaniards’ it was necessary to stop the illegal and undue use which some foreigners have been making of this service. On Thursday the Minister met with the regions and they agreed on a new article which will ‘explicitly prohibit a person moving regions in search of health attention'. The Minister considers these measures will do away with health tourism and save 1 billion €. Ana Mato also said that she was going to revise some international conventions on the matter, given that ‘many’ countries do not repay the money they owe Spain for the health attention given here to their citizens. Among the other measures approved, the end of paying for some medicaments ‘with little therapeutic value’. A list of included medicines accepted nationally is to be prepared. The Minister said ‘We all have to collaborate with those who having a worse time’.

#Madrid: Ex-Pats Defrauded The British Government Of 43 Million Pounds In Benefit Fraud In 2011

Fri, 20 Apr 2012

The British Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, Iain Duncan Smith, has been visiting the Department of Work and Pensions benefits and healthcare team in Madrid. He warned Britons living abroad not to break the strict rules on what benefits they can and cannot claim.

People who are pretending to live in the UK so they can collect benefits, but in fact are living overseas cost the British taxpayer 43 million pounds last year.

Most of the reports of such benefit fraud came from Spain.

Iain Duncan Smith commented, “We are determined to clamp down on benefit fraud abroad, which cost the British taxpayer around £43 million last year.

This money should be going to the people who need it most and not lining the pockets of criminals sunning themselves overseas.

The vast majority of British people overseas are law abiding, but fraudulently claiming benefits while living abroad is a crime and we are committed to putting a stop to it.”

He also encouraged Britons to use the dedicated Spanish hotline to report benefit thieves. 900 554 440 or you report a benefit fraud here.

The hotline has resulted in 100 people being sanctioned or prosecuted, and 134 more cases are currently under investigation.

3.1 million pounds in over payments of benefit have been identified and will be reclaimed. Source – UK in Spain - http://ukinspain.fco.gov.uk/en/news/?view=News&id=754530182

Duncan Smith made the most of his visit to Madrid and took the chance to meet with Health Minister, Ana Mato, and the Mayor of Madrid, Ana Botella.

They discussed the response to the crisis with Duncan Smith calling for an end to the culture of ‘unemployment and dependency’, increasing the control on public spending and eliminating ‘the subsidies which don’t resolve problems because in some cases ‘they trap the poor’.

#Madrid : #Scotland Drug Trafficking - Ian Donaldson enjoyed a lavish lifestyle in Marbella and Tenerife trafficking Drugs.

Posted: Sun, 22 Apr 2012 

 

 A SUSPECTED drug trafficker was found by police hiding in a farmhouse loft in Scotland with a bag stuffed with £70,000, a Spanish court was told last week.

Ian Donaldson, 32, is accused of helping fund an international drugs ring smuggling cocaine and speed from Spain to Scotland The former amateur racing driver – who drove a Lamborghini with the distinctive Lambo 88 plate – was tracked down to the farm by officers from the Scottish Crime and Drugs Enforcement Agency.

Donaldson – who enjoyed a lavish lifestyle in Marbella and Tenerife– is one of six Brits facing court in Madrid accused of making millions from the drugs trade.

Detective Inspector James Wallace of the SCDEA told the court: “I arrested him on February 27, 2009. He was hiding in a loft area in a farm building. We also found £70,000 hidden in a bag.” Eight SCDEA detectives gave evidence to the National Court in the Spanish capital last week via a video link from Edinburgh.

The court heard Scottish police mounted a surveillance operation after Donaldson, from Renton, Dunbartonshire, was released on bail. Detectives watched him in a series of meetings in Glasgow and Hamilton in April 2009, as he tried to hide the origins of his fortune, prosecutors allege. Donaldson met with fellow accused Mary Hendry and Joseph Campbell and was observed discussing large sums of money and swapping paperwork for a nightclub in Gran Canaria.

It was alleged they were secretly plotting to make it look like Donaldson had made some of his wealth from the club. Meetings took place at supermarkets in Glasgow and Hamilton and the Mitchell Library in Glasgow. DI Wallace told the court: “We saw he (Donaldson) was creating a defence for the Spanish charges. “I believe they (Hendry and Campbell) were both subservient to Donaldson, who instructed them on what to do.” The detective said Donaldson and his company IRD Services were also investigated for money- laundering in Scotland. He added: “There is evidence he purchased seven vehicles in Scotland, worth up to £900,000, between 2006 and 2008.” Mary Hendry told the court she only met Donaldson twice for legitimate business meetings. She said: “Joseph Campbell introduced me to Ian Donaldson because I was trying to sell my restaurant. “I met him the next day and he said he was not interested. I never saw him again.”

It is alleged Donaldson was the money man for a gang of drug smugglers based in Tenerife and Marbella, led by Glaswegian Ronald O’Dea, 45.

The gang are alleged to have spent millions on luxury villas, fast cars and yachts.

In October 2008, police seized a a haul of amphetamines worth £660,000 heading to Scotland after stopping a lorry in Oxfordshire.

Donaldson, Hendry and O’Dea share the dock in Madrid with fellow Scot James MacDonald, 62, and Londoners Steve Brown, 45, and Deborah Learmouth, 49.

The gang face charges ranging from drug-trafficking to money-laundering. They deny all charges. Two other defendants – Brian Rawlings and Joseph Campbell – failed to show up at the trial.

The judges will give their verdict at a later date.

#Madrid #LibDem's Michael Brown Fraudster : Police hunt for Michael Brown's missing millions

Posted: Sun, 22 Apr 2012

 

British police are still trying to trace £18m allegedly stolen by the Liberal Democrats' fugitive donor Michael Brown, who is expected to be extradited to Britain within the next 10 days.

Brown, 46, was in a holding cell near Madrid airport on Sunday, having been deported from the Dominican Republic, where he had been on the run from UK authorities for three years. Brown, who gave £2.4m to the Liberal Democrats before the 2005 general election, is not expected to challenge a formal move to extradite him to London which has already been set in motion. He was convicted of theft and false accounting in his absence in Britain in 2008 and sentenced to seven years in jail. Detectives are still trying to trace around £18m of Brown's stolen money, which had been moved between his accounts in the US, Britain and Switzerland, the Guardian understands.

Brown was estimated to have stolen more than £60m in a number of frauds. Most of his assets have been accounted for in property deals, a Bentley, a yacht and the private jet once used to fly senior Lib Dems across the UK. However, more than £18m has not yet been accounted for. "The file at Interpol on Brown and his associates remains open," a source told the Guardian.

Brown's return will be another embarrassing development in the long-running saga over the Lib Dems' biggest single donation.

The party has refused to compensate any of Brown's victims, claiming it received the money in good faith and spent it on the 2005 election campaign.

Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg welcomed Brown's return to Britain but said on Sunday that the party would not be returning his donation because the Electoral Commission had concluded the money had been received in good faith.

The deputy prime minister, who pointed out that the donation was made before he was elected to Westminster, told BBC1's Sunday Politics: "I'm very pleased he's coming back to serve his sentence. This is a convicted fraudster. "I should stress that this is something which happened as far as the Liberal Democrats are concerned before I was even an MP, yet alone leader of the Liberal Democrats.

What I've been told is that the Electoral Commission in 2009 looked at this exhaustively – as far as the receipt of that money by the Liberal Democrats from one of his companies. They categorically concluded that the money was received in good faith and all the controls, all the checks that should have been made were reasonably made by the Liberal Democrats at the time. If we'd been shown wanting on those accounts then of course we should pay the money back." But Brown's return will increase focus on the Electoral Commission inquiry into Brown's donations.

The inquiry failed to call the Lib Dems' former treasurer, Reg Clark, who resigned over Brown in 2005 and warned advisers to the former Lib Dem leader Charles Kennedy that Brown should be treated with extreme caution. One of Brown's victims said the Lib Dems should return the money. Tony Brown, managing partner at law firm Bivonas which represents US attorney Robert Mann who lost more than $5m (£3m), said Brown may be asked to give evidence as part of his client's claim against the Lib Dems.

"The Lib Dems have refused to repay this money to our client even though they know that this is the proceeds of crime.

The Electoral Commission has failed to investigate this properly in our view. So now that Brown is returning to the jurisdiction, we can investigate again and establish the basis on which the Lib Dems received this money." Brown is expected to appear before a Spanish court to confirm his name and will then appear before an extradition hearing within 10 days.

City of London police, who first uncovered Brown's fraud, confirmed his deportation. Detective Superintendent Bob Wishart said: "We hope that him facing justice will bring some closure to the victims who suffered as a result of his frauds." A close friend of Brown's told the Guardian on Sunday that he had arrived in Spain on Saturday after "volunteering" for deportation from the Dominican Republic, where he has been hiding for three years under the name of Darren Nally. "He asked to return to Britain. He is going home to face the music," the friend said. Brown appeared to come from nowhere when the party was paid £2.4m in the runup to the 2005 election from his company 5th Avenue Partners. A fast-talking and brash Glaswegian, he had walked into the party's then headquarters in Cowley Street and offered it money. He was not registered to vote, had no interest in politics and had never been a party member, but said he was giving the money to create an even playing field.

Brown wined and dined with Charles Kennedy and other party grandees, and used his private jet to fly Kennedy across the country during the election campaign.

Former Lib Dem insiders say he dazzled them with stories of Gordonstoun public school, St Andrews University and his connections with royalty and the US government.

The truth was that he had attended his local school and completed a City and Guilds in catering at Glasgow College of Food Technology.

He had no US government links – although he was wanted in Florida for cheque fraud.

He was arrested in late 2005 after four former clients said he had duped them out of more than £40m in a high-yield fraud.

His victims included Martin Edwards, the former Manchester United chairman, who had invested £8m with 5th Avenue Partners.

The court would later be told that 5th Avenue Partners was wholly fraudulent and Brown had given money to the Lib Dems to give himself an air of respectability while duping his victims.

The party had been used as part of his cover story, a judge said.

In June 2008, while awaiting trial, Brown fled and a warrant was issued for his arrest.

In the weeks before he disappeared, from his Hampstead bail address in north London, he changed his name on the electoral roll to Campbell-Brown and allowed his hair to turn grey. He travelled to the Dominican Republic where he enjoyed a millionaire's lifestyle while on the run. He lived in gated communities yards from some of the most pristine beaches in the Caribbean, drove a series of 4x4 vehicles and was a regular at exclusive golf courses. In Punta Cana, an exclusive resort on the eastern tip of the island, he could often be seen walking his dog – named Charles, after the former Lib Dem leader.

He was arrested in Punta Cana in January on unrelated fraud allegations.

Source: The Guardian

#Seville :Video - Laura Cerna Murdered American Teacher - Antonio Gordillo Charged With Her Murder.

A jury at the High Court in Seville, Spain convicted Antonio Gordillo of murdering American teacher Laura Cerna in a decision announced on Thursday, April 19, 2012 at about 2:30 p.m. local time, and reported on that date by Diario de Sevilla, El Correo, Europa Press, ABC de Sevilla, and other news sources.

An attached slide show and video clip about domestic violence in Spain are also included with this report.

http://www.examiner.com/article/spanish-jury-convicts-antonio-gordillo-of-murdering-american-teacher-laura-cerna

#Spain #Madrid: Bank of Spain confirms country is in technical recession as economy shrinks in first quarter:

Spain is back in recession as the economy contracted 0.4 percent in the first quarter of the year, the central bank said Monday.

The figure published in a Bank of Spain monthly report followed a 0.3 percent decline in the fourth quarter. A technical recession is commonly defined as two consecutive quarters of economic contraction.

The news of recession comes as no surprise, however - the new conservative government has said the economy is shrinking and forecasts it will contract 1.7 percent this year...read more

http://apne.ws/Jzf0N8

King of #Spain Faces Calls to Abdicate After Elephant Hunt

 

The King of Spain who is recovering in hospital after injuring his hip during a fall while elephant hunting in Botswana faced calls to abdicate amid growing controversy over the trip.

By Fiona Govan, Madrid, Daily Telegraph, April 16, 2012

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/spain/9207280/King-of-Spain-faces-calls-to-abdicate-after-elephant-hunt.html

The 74-year-old monarch has faced a barrage of criticism over his extravagant lifestyle at a time when Spaniards are suffering harsh austerity measures in a nation mired in economic crisis.

Left wing leaders called for greater transparency of Royal accounts and one even suggested it may be time for the once popular monarch to give up his throne.

“The head of state must choose between his obligations and the duty of service of his public responsibilities, or an abdication that would allow him to enjoy a different kind of life,” Tomas Gomez, the leader of the Madrid branch of the opposition socialist party, said on Sunday.

Spain’s minority United Left (IU) party called for a referendum on whether Spain should return to a republic citing the poor example the Monarch was setting during a time of hardship.

“It shows a complete lack of ethics and respect toward the people of Spain who are suffering a lot,” said Cayo Lara Moya, spokesman of the IU.

The party said it will present a list of questions to parliament calling for details of the financing of the trip to be made public. The budget for the Royal Household was reduced by only 2 per cent in 2012 – from 8.43 million euros last year – whereas government ministries faced cuts of 16 per cent across the board.

This year, for the first time, the Palace will publish a breakdown of its accounts in a step towards greater transparency.

So far the Royal Household has declined to give details on the trip except to say it was a “private matter”.

King Juan Carlos also faced calls to resign his position as patron of the Spanish branch of the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) over his hunting of elephants.

A petition on the online forum Actuable had already attracted 40,000 signatures by Monday lunchtime calling for the King to renounce his presidency of the WWF in light of the recent hunting trip.

El Mundo, a newspaper normally supportive of the Monarchy summed up the feeling in Spain with an editorial, Sunday, entitled: “An irresponsible journey at an inopportune time.”

Mariano Rajoy, Spain’s Prime Minister, will meet with the monarch later this week when he is discharged from hospital, the government website said.

 http://bit.ly/HV3WrO #spain #news #euro

#Spain :Census of "stolen children" to be carried out

Census of "stolen children" to be carried out By: ThinkSpain , Thursday, April 12, 2012

The government has agreed to carry out a census of possible cases of "stolen children" (niños robados) in Spain, which will include name, date and place of birth, and a database in collaboration with the National Institute of Toxicology, which will enable scientists to compare genetic profiles of mothers and children, one of the original demands made by the victims of this scandal. In today's meeting with representatives of the victims' associations, Justice Minister Alberto Ruiz Gallardón (pictured, centre) said: "We want to help resolve this terrible human drama. We're not going to give up on it." His comments came on the same day Sister María, the first person to be charged in relation to the scandal, claimed her right to silence after being called to testify in court in Madrid. Furthermore, Spanish authorities are going to suggest an amendment to European Union law to facilitate access to healthcare files and thus determine blood relationships. The Justice Ministry has also agreed to make it easier for victims to get access to data held on the Civil Register, like births and possible deaths of newborn infants over the past 50 years. The victims' associations have asked for an "interdepartamental commission" or "specialised investigatory group" to be set up at national level, and offering international coverage. With regard to the state prosecutor, they have asked for local and regional offices to be instructed to act in a "uniform" way, basing their cases on the crime of "illegal detention" so that cases are not shelved. More than 900 cases of "stolen children" are currently being investigated, but new cases are coming to light all the time. Lawyers say the total could eventually reach 300,000. The scandal covers a period of about 40 to 50 years, beginning under the Franco dictatorship, and continuing up to the 1990s.  Hundreds, or possibly thousands of children were taken from parents judged to be morally or economically deficient and placed with approved Catholic, often childless, families.  An ingrained fear of or respect for the church and the medical profession has prevented the scandal being exposed before now.  Also, Spanish law does not require the biological mother's name on the birth certificate, which has slowed down exposure of the scandal in many cases. Source : Think Spain

#Cordoba :No Trace Of Ruth And Jóse - Father Remains The Prime Suspect

Six months without Ruth and José, Córdoba's missing children By: thinkSPAIN , Friday, April 6, 2012

NO trace of Ruth and José, the two infants who disappeared while playing in a Córdoba park with their father, has been seen in six months and all search parties have come home empty-handed, authorities revealed this weekend. Ruth, six, and two-year-old José literally vanished into thin air on October 8 last year and, although the river near the city-centre park was dragged and their paternal grandparents' garden and home searched, they have not been found. Their mother, Ruth Ortiz, who lives with the children in Huelva, has already testified, as has their father. The father, José Bretón, remains prime suspect, but no evidence has been found to incriminate him. Judge in charge of the case, José Luis Rodríguez Laín, who remanded Bretón in custody on October 21, maintains that the children were never in the Cruz Conde park in the city in the first place. This is the view held by Ruth Ortiz, since she claims Bretón did not call her to tell her of the children's disappearance until 05.00hrs the following morning. She has been clamouring ever since for her ex-husband to 'tell the truth' about the infants' whereabouts, and has also been in contact with his brother and sister, Rafael and Catalina, believing they may hold information leading to finding the children. Ruth Ortiz is also said to have formally reported Bretón for 'psychological abuse' during their marriage, namely 'insults and humiliation', although there is said to have been no domestic violence involved. Laín and the prosecution service believe Ruth and José's father to be guilty of false imprisonment, or kidnap, of the kids whose mother had custody of them. They have tracked his mobile telephone calls and photographs taken on his handset, which they claim do not coincide with his version of events. Source : Think Spain

#Spain: Jeers For Spanish Nun In Baby Kidnapping Case.

An 80-year-old Spanish nun was jeered as she arrived in court this week, the first person to go before a judge over cases of babies allegedly stolen from their mothers during and after the Franco era.

Sr Maria Gomez Valbuena went before a judge investigating her role in the kidnapping of a newborn girl from a Madrid hospital three decades ago, one of thousands of cases of alleged theft of babies by nuns, priests and doctors.

Wearing the blue habit of her Sisters of Charity order, she refused to testify and left the court accompanied by another nun from her convent as police shielded her from the crush of reporters.

She was called to give evidence in the case of Maria Luisa Torres, a mother who has accused the nun of stealing her daughter shortly after she was born at the Santa Cristina hospital in Madrid in March 1982.

Ms Torres, 58, said that she accepted the nun’s offer to temporarily look after her newborn daughter until her economic situation improved but instead, Sr Maria gave the baby away to another family.

“I was still half asleep when I asked her where my daughter was. She told me: ‘Stop asking me that or else I will also take away your other daughter and you will go to jail for adultery’,” Ms Torres said.

“She was a nun and I thought she was untouchable,” she added when asked why she did not take action against Sr Maria at the time.

Ms Torres was reunited with her daughter Pilar last year following an investigation by a journalist.

The nun has been charged with illegal detention and falsifying documents.

As Sr Maria arrived at the court escorted by police, a woman who believes she was kidnapped as a newborn from the Santa Cristina hospital in 1957 yelled at the black car transporting the nun.

“It is shameful and on top of it all they protect her. I don’t even know who I am,” said 55-year-old Paloma Perez as the car drove by.

There are no firm figures for the number of children who were snatched from their mothers during General Francisco Franco’s 1939-75 dictatorship and up to the end of the 1980s.
Estimates range from hundreds to tens of thousands of victims of a practice that began as a policy to remove children whose “moral education” was considered at risk and allegedly developed into financial trafficking.

http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20120414/world/Jeers-for-Spanish-nun-in-baby-kidnapping-case.415407

#Spain #Bailout :Spains 10-year bond yield jumps above 6 percent as fears mount over bailout

 http://bit.ly/HVSIFt