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Spain: The GAL affair: general held

01 May 1996

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Judicial investigations into several alleged cases of state terrorism involving the so-called Anti-Terrorist Liberation Groups (GAL) led to the remand in prison of Guardia Civil General Rodríguez Galindo for the kidnapping, torture and murder of two young Basques, Lasa and Zabala. The impact on police and military morale was considerable, not only because he was the highest-ranking officer to be imprisoned since the February 1981 coup attempt, but because he was the most decorated officer leading the anti-terrorist campaign of the Guardia Civil for the past 15 years. The Partido Popular government has refused to set up a parliamentary commission of inquiry into the GAL, despite having advocated this when in opposition. It is also stalling over several judicial requests for the disclosure of various documents of the intelligence agency, CESID; the documents, which had been withheld by the former PSOE government, are thought to be essential to the prosecution of the GAL cases. The importance of the prosecutions has led to calls from several political figures for a blanket amnesty, something so far resisted because of its association with the punto final laws of the Argentinean and Chilean dictatorships.

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