Simon Hunter
A PROBE has been opened in the Basque Country after it emerged that a chief inspector from the National Police offered his officers days off work according to the number of immigrants they could arrest.
The alleged incident took place in Irun, in the Guipuzcoa province. The police order was in place for ‘several hours’, and would have been applied from July 1 onward according to Spanish news agency EFE.
The incentives were to be offered to any officer who arrested an immigrant, with one detainee corresponding to three days free, two detainees corresponding to four days, and more than 10 detainees corresponding to five days.
The police union Jupol stated that time off for officers is ‘properly regulated’, and denounced the fact that in Irun the police leadership were trying to ‘increase the numbers detained by the immigration section’.
Sources from the central government delegation in the Basque Country confirmed to news agency EFE that the order did indeed exist, but that it was deactivated by the National Police leadership in the northern region a few hours after it was put in place.
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