THE former Socialist prime minister, Mr Felipe Gonzalez, once made a famously ambiguous statement about the "dirty war" against ETA in the 1980s: "Democracy and the rule of law are defended not only in debating chambers but also in the sewers."
Mr Gonzalez, who was prime minister for the duration of what has turned out to be a nasty case of state terrorism, firmly denies that he knew or approved of his subordinates' activities. But somebody should have told him that, if you let your security personnel work in the sewers, they may one day try to haul you through the courts covered in every sort of excrement.
The dirty war against Basque terrorists, which claimed nearly 30 victims, ended in 1987, but it continues to cast an ugly and steadily extending shadow over Spanish public life.
The GAL (Grupos Antiterroristas de Liberacion) were an unholy alliance of Socialist Party leaders, former Francoist policemen, and assorted mercenaries and neo nazis. A handful of judges and investigative journalists have doggedly attempted to bring all the culprits to justice, and have encountered every conceivable form of obstruction. Some of the investigators have also allegedly become involved in unsavoury conspiracies themselves.
The half dozen GAL cases currently before the courts sometimes seem like an enormous hall of distorting mirrors. Nevertheless, more and more famous faces can now be clearly distinguished, merging with obscure and sinister figures from the underworld and the secret services.
The last month has added a number of novel twists to an already painfully distorted tale. Enrique Galindo (not a fortunate surname in the circumstances), a recently promoted Guardia Civil general with a chestful of medals, was carted off to preventive detention on May 24th. He is charged with aiding and abetting the kidnap, torture and murder of two ETA suspects in 1983.
Two former ministers of the interior, who have been accused of participating in the dirty war themselves, emotively declared their willingness to join him in the cells. Last Monday they visited him in jail for three hours, and left him a present of Gabriel Garcia Marquez's new book News of a Kidnapping. Magic realism, you might say, meets cynical reality. Two other top generals both previously at the head of the Guardia Civil, also face GAL related charges.
The embroilment of the Guardia Civil in what previously seemed a police and political scandal has serious implications.
The GC is a military institution which does not take kindly to seeing its good name dragged through the courts. The new conservative government's Minister of the Interior has had to move very adroitly to silence a serious protest by military brass. He may not find it so easy the next time.
Meanwhile, Sgt Enrique Dorado, a flamboyant former leader of Galindo's elite anti terrorist squad, is in solitary confinement. He is charged with torture (possibly pulling out GAL victims' fingernails), and putting bullets into the backs of their heads, allegedly on Galindo's orders.
In a curious sideshow, the macho sergeant's homosexual lover parades outside the Madrid High Court. He carries a banner which reads, rather touchingly, "I believe in your innocence.
Not many other people are so sure. Dorado has already been expelled from the Guardia Civil after convictions for torture and armed robbery in other cases. But he mysteriously acquired a generous pension, equivalent to that of a colonel on full and honourable retirement.
The sergeant has, ratherly absurdly, accused one of the judges investigating these cases of trying to "get my lover into bed". More seriously, the same judge was also accused this month, by one of the few convicted participants in the dirty war, of ignoring new evidence so as not to impede his sudden pursuit of a political office in 1993.
Then, when that career turned out to be brief and less than brilliant, the judge is said to have illegitimately used the same evidence to vengefully damage his former party colleagues.
Confused yet? So is almost everyone trying to follow these cases. But the bewildering specifics should not obscure the real issues, though it would serve many powerful interests if they did. The basic questions are terribly, perhaps terrifyingly, simple.
How did a democratic government permit its senior Interior Ministry staff to organise a murder campaign over four years? If senior members of that government are shown to have been directly involved in GAL, as now seems likely, will they really be treated as equal before the law? Cane Spanish democracy stand the strain if they, and high profile generals, are sentenced to long prison terms?
Alternatively, would Spanish democracy have any credibility if they are pardoned, or evade prison on technicalities? The GAL episode has already done almost irreparable damage to the moral authority of the Spanish state in the Basque country, and the undignified charades currently parading through the courts are eroding respect for politicians and, perhaps unfairly, for the law in every corner of the country.
The new government finds itself in a dilemma. In opposition, it used the GAL case mercilessly to tarnish the Socialists. But it is deeply uneasy at the prospect of jailing generals. Not without reason, it also fears that some of these generals may be ready to reveal similar dirty deeds, under conservative ministers in the 1970s, if push comes to shove. An appalling vista is not the half of it . . .