The President of Spain, José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, will not be attending the funeral of John Philip Romero, a Spanish soldier killed in an attack in Afghanistan.

The Minister of Finance Elena Salgado and the Minister of Defence Carme Chacon will both be attending instead, as the President has other, more pressing engagements.

The opposition leader Mariano Rajoy will be attending. This will be the third funeral of a member of the Spanish military killed in Afghanistan.

The President, who is scheduled to fly tomorrow afternoon to Washington to participate in a Prayer Breakfast, attended the funerals of Christian Javier Quispe Aguirre who died on January 8th and Sergeant Juan Antonio Abril Sánchez who died on 26th May, 2007. In both cases the soldiers were killed in traffic accidents.