Spanish intelligencechief arrested

Madrid - Colonel Juan Alberto Perote, the former chief of the most clandestine section of the Spanish intelligence service, Cesid, was taken into preventive detention yesterday accused in connection with leaking illegally taped telephone conversations, including those of the King, writes Liz Nash.

The newspaper El Pais reported yesterday that Spain's Deputy Prime Minister, Narcis Serra, who was defence minister when the buggings took place, offered his resignation last Tuesday when the story broke, but that the Prime Minister, Felipe Gonzalez, had asked him to remain until an investigation into the affair was concluded.