As Spain’s chief spook, one might expect Alfredo Saiz to spend his time in the shadows quietly catching enemy spies.

But Spaniards were treated yesterday to a rather different spectacle: front-page newspaper photographs showed their spymaster hauling in a huge swordfish while on a fishing trip in the seas off Senegal.

The photographs, published in the Spanish daily El Mundo, were accompanied by allegations that the head of the National Intelligence Centre (CNI) indulged his passion for landing big game fish on the high seas and diving in exotic settings around the world at the expense of the taxpayer.

The newspaper, citing sources within the security service, claimed that Mr Saiz made six fishing and diving trips to Mexico, Senegal, Mali and Morocco between 2004 and 2008. On one occasion, the paper 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 trip, with a company called Albatros Peche in Dakar, cost €2,000 (£1,690).

Snaps of Mr Saiz proudly landing the swordfish were published yesterday in El Mundo.

The newspaper claimed that CNI agents doctored one version of the same photograph on the orders of Mr Saiz. In the doctored version his face was replaced with that of another spy who was on the same trip. The newspaper published what it claimed was the genuine photograph, which clearly shows Mr Saiz’s face.

Mr Saiz was forced to deny the claims publicly when he appeared before a congressional defence commission.

“I have never used public money to practise hunting or fishing,” he told the commission. “All these allegations have been made by anonymous sources. They are a collection of falsehoods without proof.”

Mr Saiz, who has been CNI director since 2004, had his command renewed recently by José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, the Spanish Prime Minister.

Antonio Rubio, the El Mundo journalist who wrote the article, said that when Mr Saiz became aware that the newspaper was about to publish its report, he ordered agents to doctor any photographs showing him fishing off Senegal.

Mr Saiz was accompanied by four armed secret service agents for the weekend fishing trip off Senegal on board the Gibraltar-registered catamaran Blue Albatross, the newspaper claimed.

Mr Saiz also ordered agents in Dakar to remove the dedication he wrote in the visitors’ book of the Blue Albatross.

The secret service director also travelled to Mexico for a work meeting in 2004 but used the trip to go underwater fishing off Cancún. Mr Saiz told the Spanish Congress that the Mexican secret service had paid for this trip.

He made another trip to Mexico to go underwater fishing in February 2006 but El Mundo said there was no confirmation that the costs were met by the Mexican State.

In July 2006 Mr Saiz was said to have travelled to Senegal for secret service meetings then went on a hunting safari in nearby Mauritania. The costs were met by a CNI contact in Africa. Afterwards Mr Saiz is said to have embarked on a fishing trip off Dakar.

In July 2007 the spymaster is reported to have travelled to Bamako, Mali, for a hunting trip, arriving in a Spanish Air Force Fokker 27 aircraft.

In July last year Mr Saiz was said to have travelled to Morocco with a friend for a diving trip. Later the same month, the newspaper claimed, Mr Saiz travelled to Senegal for a fishing trip.

After the photographs were published yesterday, Soraya Sáenz de Santamaria, of the conservative opposition Popular Party, said that she would ask Carme Chacón, the Defence Minister, to respond to the claims.

The CNI said that it would not comment on the newspaper’s claims as Mr Saiz had answered the allegations in an earlier appearance before the Congress last month, when the newspaper originally made the claims.

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