Tunnel under parade route

Press, 28 May 1981, Page 6

Tunnel under parade route

INZPA-Reuter Barcelona ■' The questioning of gunmen arrested for the week-end hostage-holding at the Central Bank in Barcelona has led the police to a tunnel under the route of a Parade in which King Juan Carlos will take part on Sunday.

Sources said the tunnel began under a flat rented six weeks ago by Jose Maria Cuevas Jimenez, aged 34, the only gunman to die when Spanish anti-terrorists police stormed the bank.

Several guns and cartridges were found in the flat, as were two licence plates and 39 sets of identity papers. The tunnel, said to be three metres long, one metre high and 1.5 metres wide, ran outward from under the 'street-level flat, near the junction of Buenos Aires Street and the “Diagonal,” a street where the military parade was to pass. The tunnel passes near the stands reserved for the public and 300 m from the platform intended for the king. ■ The police would say little about the tunnel, and it was Unclear whether it was dug

an attempt on the life of the king or other officials in the Armed Forces Day parade. It was also not known whether the parade would be cancelled. In Madrid, the Prime Minister (Mr . Leopoldo Calvo Sotelo) told Parliament yesterday there had been no attempt to cover up any political motives behind the siege.

Making an unusual appearance before the Lower House, he tried to clarify the confusion over the identity, number and political affilia.tions of the gunmen. The Socialist opposition immediately replied that the siege was a “strictly political” incident and demanded that the Government declare its firm intention to defend Spain’s fragile democracy.

Mr Calvo Sotelo said' the leader of the gunmen had told the police that he .had been hired by an unidentified Right-wing extremist.

But he said the Government had been unable to find any new information on this assertion and promised that the public would be told of any, developments.