A GRANDFATHER who insists he is a ‘former spy’ has told The Olive Press he is ready to drop ‘bombshell’ evidence proving his claims as he fights extradition to Spain – and that he tried to stop the deadly 2004 Madrid train bombings.
Accountant Paul Blanchard, 81, from Fulford near York, has long made the jaw-dropping claim that he infiltrated an Al Qaeda cell on orders from Spanish police around 2004 – and tipped off his handlers about the March 11 Atocha terror attacks that killed 193 people and injured around 2,500.
But Blanchard is adamant that authorities ignored his warnings – and then turned on him, accusing him of involvement in an alleged Tenerife timeshare scam involving well-known mafia figures including notorious British crook John ‘goldfinger’ Palmer.
The former financial adviser has been battling extradition since 2018, when Spanish prosecutors charged him with fraud, money laundering, coercion and threats in connection with the Tenerife scheme.
Blanchard is no stranger to prosecutions – he was jailed for six years and six months in the UK in 2006 after pleading guilty to passport fraud, laundering £375,000 and attempting to steal £4.3m from a London bank and transfer it to Spain.
Now, as he prepares for an appeal on May 12, he says he is willing to share recordings that he claims will prove his innocence – and that police negligence allowed one of Europe’s worst terror attacks to unfold.
“I have taped conversations with Spanish police showing I was genuinely working for them,” Blanchard told the Olive Press. “More importantly, they show the Atocha bombings could have been stopped.”
“My handlers threw me under the bus after failing to act on my tip-off,” he explained. “If they admit I was working for them, they also have to admit their failure to prevent the attack.”
The Atocha train bombings remain the deadliest terrorist attack in modern Spanish history, and a turning point in Europe’s fight against homegrown terrorism.
Ten powerful bombs ripped through four commuter trains during Madrid’s morning rush hour, sending passengers fleeing in terror and leaving scenes of devastation across the city.
Authorities later traced the attack to a radicalised cell inspired by Al Qaeda – but Blanchard insists he had passed on intelligence that could have prevented it.
When police ignored his warnings, he said his handlers had no choice but to disavow him – instead charging him over the same case that first brought him into their spy network back in 2001.
After Spanish prosecutors issued a European arrest warrant for Blanchard in 2018, Westminster Magistrates’ Court initially approved extradition to Spain in 2020.
In 2021, Blanchard won his first appeal, with a Court of Appeal judge dismissing the Spanish warrant as ‘incoherent and defective.’
But the battle did not end there. The Magistrates’ Court later renewed the extradition push, and Blanchard eventually sacked his previous legal team after losing his case in October 2024.
Now, with another hearing before the Court of Appeal looming, the accountant says he is ready to face the fight of his life.
“Brace yourselves,” he told the Olive Press. “Because this is going to be explosive.”
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