Police arrested on suspicion of Cursach case disclosures

One of the officers is the former head of the money laundering group, who had been central to the investigation into Bartolomé Cursach and the activities of the Grupo Cursach and Palma police and was moved to the information unit some months ago after the money laundering group was disbanded. The other officer was the contact for the "madame", the arranger of alleged prostitute parties for police, politicians and public service employees.

Both were very close to the investigation and therefore to the former instructing judge, Manuel Penalva, and to the prosecutor, Miguel Ángel Subirán. In the summer, Penalva's replacement, Miquel Florit, ordered the opening of a separate investigation into apparent disclosures related to the case. Defence lawyers for Cursach and his right-hand man at Grupo Cursach, Tolo Sbert, had complained about what they considered to have been deliberate leaks of information.

It was Florit who also ordered the seizure last week of documents and equipment from journalists at the Diario de Mallorca and Europa Press news agency. The arrests of the two officers, a week after the court order to seize journalist information related to apparent leaks, were made around midday on Tuesday. Officers from the National Police's internal affairs went to the police HQ in Palma and the ex-chief inspector of the money laundering group was held for three hours before being released with charges.