Walter Finch
A BRITISH accountant has claimed he has been ‘thrown under the bus’ by a UK court after it ordered him to be extradited to Spain to face longstanding money laundering charges.
Paul Blanchard, 79, who will appeal the verdict, has maintained that he was acting as an ‘undercover spy’ for Spanish police when he worked for known mobsters and terrorists at the turn of the millennium.
However, he ended up being charged with the very crimes he was supposedly spying on in Spain, who have twice now tried to extradite him from the UK.
“The judge made some very serious factual errors during the court case,” Blanchard told the Olive Press after the decision was made.
“He disregarded all the evidence which proves I was an undercover state agent for the Spanish security services.
“But we will appeal the court in England, just like we appealed the last extradition case in 2018 – and won.”
Blanchard previously told the Olive Press he was feeding Spain’s CGI intelligence services information on groups such as the IRA, the Russian mafia and Al Qaeda.
That is, until the CGI burned their star man – codename ‘Isabella’ – in 2004 and denied to British cops that he was their agent when they suspected him of criminal involvement.
Blanchard claimed he was originally recruited by Spanish spooks when he brought them evidence of criminal activity by alleged mob boss Mohamed Derbah, in Tenerife.
However, the police could never make charges stick on Derbah – reportedly the right-hand man of British mafia don John ‘Goldfinger’ Palmer – until now.
The Olive Press exclusively revealed that the feared figure, rumoured to control the island with an iron fist, is set to stand trial in Madrid.
Blanchard claims that the evidence he compiled over twenty years ago while working for Spanish spooks will be crucial during the court case.
