Spain’s spymaster was forced to quit after becoming embroiled in a scandal over fishing and diving trips to exotic locations he was said to have made at taxpayers’ expense.

Alberto Saiz, director of National Intelligence Centre (CNI), stood down after he lost the confidence of José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, the Spanish Prime Minister.

The spymaster offered his resignation after his plan to purge Spain’s secret service of 60 agents , who were suspected of leaking information to the press, was rejected by Mr Zapatero.

The scandal has left the organisation at the centre of Spain’s fight against Islamist terrorism and Eta, the Basque separatist group, in disarray.

Mr Saiz was accused of making private fishing and diving trips to Senegal, Mali, Morocco and Mexico while on official business and leaving the taxpayer to pick up the bill. He was forced to emerge from the shadows twice and deny the allegations before the Spanish Parliament.

But as the scandal refused to go away, Mr Zapatero, whose Socialist Party backed Mr Saiz’s appointment in 2004, became concerned that the director had lost control of the CNI and moved to end the matter.

Mr Saiz told colleagues he was resigning to “stop the further deterioration in the working of the CNI” and not to “prejudice the Spanish Government”.

Most damaging were photographs, published in the Spanish daily El Mundo, showing the spymaster hauling in a swordfish while on a fishing trip off Senegal.

The newspaper, citing security sources, claimed that Mr Saiz made six fishing and diving trips between 2004 and 2008.

On one occasion, it said, Mr Saiz used a Falcon jet from the Spanish Air Force to travel from Madrid to Dakar in Senegal for a weekend fishing trip.

The newspaper claimed that CNI agents doctored some photographs from the same trip on the orders of Mr Saiz to remove his face. To prove this, the newspaper published what it claimed was the original picture which shows Mr Saiz’s face.

Mr Saiz, who commanded 3,100 agents and a budget of €325 million, told parliament: “I have never used public money to practise hunting or fishing.”

Mr Saiz, 56, broke with tradition when he became the first Spanish spymaster to call a press conference to expose an agent who sold secrets to Russia.

Always an unorthodox choice to head the secret service, Mr Saiz had previously been the environmental head for a regional government.

However, two notable successes during Mr Saiz’s time in charge were the arrest last year of Miguel de Garikoitz Aspiazu Rubina, known as Txeroki, the head of Eta’s military wing, and tackling illegal immigration.

General Félix Sanz Roldán was yesterday installed as the new director of the CNI, the first soldier to occupy the post since 2001.

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