France/Basque Country: GAL "dirty war" arrests
01 March 2000
Five senior Spanish officials and policemen have been found guilty of kidnapping and murder in Spain's clandestine "dirty war" against Basque civilians and suspected ETA sympathisers in southern France. A former state governor, general Julen Elgorriaga, and Guardia Civil officers, Enrique Rodriguez Galindo, captains Angel Vaquero, and Enrique Dorado, and private Felipe Bayo, were found guilty by the Audiencia Nacional of the kidnapping and murder in October 1983 of two Basques, Jose Antonio Lasa and Jose Ignacio Zabala. Galindo and Elgorriaga received 71-year sentences due to the direct participation of the state's armed apparatus in the GAL (Grupos Antiterroristas de Liberacion Nacional). The GAL killed 28 people between 1983 and 1987, many of whom were unconnected to ETA.
The conviction for murder of a senior figure such as Galindo is significant. He still faces additional charges, a situation that leaves the door open for more disclosures that could undermine the evidence of former prime minister Felipe Gonzalez - that he took no "illegal action" - when testifying to the Supreme Court in 1998. Gonzalez was accused of orchestrating the GAL death squads by former deputy prime minister Francisco Alvarez Cascos in 1996, but the government refused to declassify secret documents and the court ruled that there was not enough evidence to charge him (see Statewatch vol 8 no 3 & 4).