A RETIRED British accountant has declared his claims of being a spy are vindicated after Spanish prosecutors abruptly dropped extradition proceedings against him this week.
Paul Blanchard, 81, from Fulford near York, has spent eight years battling Spanish efforts to bring him to Madrid to stand trial on money laundering charges.
Just one day before his UK appeal on Tuesday, May 12, his lawyers told him all charges against him had been dropped.
“I am ecstatic,” he told The Olive Press. “This finally proves I was telling the truth.”
The mild-mannered bookkeeper has long maintained that the Spanish government wants to lock him up to bury the work he did for them spying on gangsters in Tenerife, Islamic terrorists and even the Russian mafia in the early 2000s.
He claims that Madrid is trying to cover up its inaction over his warnings of imminent jihadist terror attacks in Madrid and London, which together claimed more than 200 lives.
Spanish prosecutors, however, claim that Blanchard – who was convicted of fraud and money laundering in the UK in 2008 on separate charges – was actually working with the gangs he claimed to be spying on in Tenerife between 1999 and 2001.
Blanchard has long fought the allegations by claiming he was working as an informant for Spanish authorities when the crimes were allegedly committed, and that he later went on to infiltrate Al Qaeda on orders from his handlers around 2003.
He added that, to avoid embarrassment over their alleged failure to prevent the attacks, his handlers had no choice but to disavow him.
The accountant had been fighting extradition since 2018, when Spanish authorities first issued a European arrest warrant against him.
Blanchard’s lawyer, Karen Todner, suggested that sudden about-face indicates that Spanish prosecutors realised they did not have a strong enough case.
“I think the Spanish simply didn’t have the evidence to convict,” she said.
“The withdrawal of the warrant by the Spanish authorities is a victory for justice.”
Last month, Spain’s National Court acquitted the alleged mastermind of the Tenerife scheme, Mohammed Derbah, of charges including drug trafficking, money laundering, document forgery, and bribery.
The court cited a lack of evidence and the passage of time in its ruling, although an appeal to Spain’s Supreme Court remains possible.
Spain’s public prosecutor’s office has been approached for comment.
Last week, Blanchard shared with The Olive Press a bundle of documents that capture him in conversations with his alleged handlers – and forced Madrid to drop the charges.
In one audio tape, Blanchard appears to suggest he warned Spanish authorities ‘two or three months before the Madrid bombings’ – the deadly terror attack at Atocha station that killed 193 people.
His alleged handler is heard replying: “I know.”
Other recordings appear to capture Blanchard and his alleged Spanish handlers arranging meetings in Madrid.
The accountant’s skeleton argument for his appeal also details conversations he claimed to have had with MI5 officers around the same period.
In some of the transcripts, Blanchard is quoted as saying he had come into contact with Mohammed Khan, the alleged mastermind behind the 7/7 London bombings, which killed 52 people and injured more than 770 in 2005.
According to the same documents, the accountant once told a Special Branch agent that ‘Khan had intimated to me that he was linked to Al Qaeda,’ that he was ‘linked to other Asians in Birmingham, Leeds and Bradford,’ and that he had transferred money to Spain through bank accounts held by others.
Blanchard says he provided this information ‘six months before the Madrid bombings.’
“For the past twenty years I’ve been telling nothing but the truth,” he said. “And finally Spain has had no choice but to admit they did not have a case against me.”
In 2008, Blanchard was sentenced to two years in prison in the UK on related money laundering and fraud charges.
He was accused of helping groups linked to Khan launder around €5 million from the UK to Spain, as well as steal around €400,000 from NatWest bank through a complex financial manoeuvre.
Blanchard has long maintained that, in this case too, he was working undercover for Spanish police when the crimes were committed – but that he had no choice but to plead guilty after Spanish authorities refused to confirm his status as an informant.
“But now I am finally ready to appeal this conviction as well,” Blanchard told The Olive Press. “I have all the proof I need.”
As the long-running saga appears to be coming to an end, Blanchard insists there are still loose ends to tie up.
“The past few years have been a constant battle,” he said. “But I will not rest until justice is done and the truth is exposed.”
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