Paper publishes alleged CIA warning to Catalan police over La Rambla attacks
Document seems to be “modified or fabricated”, according to WikiLeaks editor, Julian Assange
A Barcelona newspaper published a text in English allegedly sent by the CIA to the Catalan police in May in order to warn the agency about a possible ISIS attack in Barcelona. The paper, El Periódico, said that the warning had been sent through the American National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC) to the Catalan and Spanish police, Spain’s Guardia Civil, and two Spanish intelligence centers. However, the document has raised suspicions over the past hours because of both typographical and syntactical errors in the text.
WikiLeaks tweeted a number of supposed language mistakes in the text, including ‘Irak’ for ‘Iraq’ or ‘nota’ instead of ‘notice’. Both of them are Spanish language malapropisms, according to the organization. Wikileaks’ editor, Julian Assange, also cast doubt on the information via Twitter. “This appears to be modified or fabricated. The use of Spanish language quote marks '<<', '>>' in an English CIA report is very suspicious,” said Assange. WikiLeaks linked the alleged revelation to the Catalan referendum, to be held on October 1.
The Catalan government and police have been denying any CIA warning related to La Rambla so far. Both institutions will hold a press conference today at noon to “deny” the information.