Spain: State terrorists sentenced
01 September 1998
In July the Spanish Supreme Court sentenced former Socialist Party (Partido Socialista Obrero Espanol, PSOE) Minister of the Interior, Jose Barrionuevo, and his deputy, Rafael Vera, to ten years imprisonment for organising and financing the Grupos Antiterroristas de Liberacion (GAL) abduction of a Basque businessman fifteen years ago. The former civil governor of Vizcaya, Julian Sancristobal, was sentenced to ten years for kidnapping and misappropriating funds. Nine other officials and policemen, including the three most senior police officers in Bilbao, were sentenced to between 2 and 9 years.
Basque businessman, Segundo Marey, was kidnapped in Hendaya on 4 December 1983, and held for ten days before being dumped across the French border, in the first action claimed by the GAL. The Interior ministry orchestrated and funded death squad was set up to target Basques and suspected ETA sympathisers. Its shambolic operations left a trail of abductions, torture, bombings and assassinations between 1983-87 that resulted in 28 deaths; at least a third of those murdered were later shown to have no connection to ETA.
At the trial lower-level officials and policemen incriminated their former chiefs, basing their defence on the grounds that they were obeying orders. They explained that the GAL campaign of terror was designed to exert pressure on the French government to act against ETA members residing in their country. It is the first trial to demonstrate the links between the death squad and the highest echelons of Spanish government despite cabinet-level attempts to cover-up secret papers. It has been widely reported that Barrionuevo is merely a political scapegoat for former Socialist Party prime-minister, Felipe Gonzalez, who avoided prosecution last year. It is also the first to jail a former minister since the Franco dictatorship although the verdict split the 11-judge court along party lines.
Barrionuevo, who also had his status as a parliamentary deputy removed by the court, and Vera will appeal to the highest chamber, the Constitutional Court. Whatever the outcome there, it appears unlikely that the men will be jailed with the PSOE threatening to reveal details of covert operations carried out by previous governments to put pressure on conservative prime minister, Jose Maria Aznar.
Other trials are to follow in relation to GAL attacks and over the embezzlement of vast amounts of public money from secret funds, with both Barrionuevo and Vera facing further charges. The significance of the recent verdicts lie in the fact that they confirm the involvement of the Socialist Party government in running the GAL. The party and Felipe Gonzalez closed ranks to support the two principal accused, right up to the moment of their imprisonment, and alleged that the judicial process was politically motivated. They are now demanding an official pardon for the two.
El Pais 30.7.98.