A General in the Civil Guard and a former Socialist Civil Governor were sentenced in Madrid yesterday to 71 years in prison for the "dirty war" kidnap and murder of two members of ETA.
Spain's special anti-terrorist court found the two men guilty of the 1983 kidnap and murder of Jose Antonio Lasa (20), and Jose Ignacio Zabala (21). Three more junior Civil Guards, including a lieutenant-colonel, were also convicted.
However, in a sentence with major implications for the further investigation of the dirty war against ETA under Mr Felipe Gonzalez's Socialist Party (PSOE) governments, the court acquitted all six men of charges of belonging to an "armed gang". A former deputy interior minister and a ministry lawyer were acquitted of covering up the murders.
Gen Enrique Rodriguez Galindo was deputy commander of the Civil Guard barracks near San Sebastian at the time of the crimes, and has been an icon and hero to the Spanish security forces in the anti-terrorist struggle. He is the most senior Spanish officer to be convicted of a serious crime since the 1981 attempted coup sent two generals to prison.
Julen Elgorriaga was the senior Socialist Party official in San Sebastian, and a close associate of Galindo. His conviction fits a pattern under which leading Socialists have been convicted for crimes claimed by the GAL (Anti-terrorist Liberation Groups). The GAL killed 27 people, mostly on French territory, between 1983 and 1986.
Three Civil Guard officers, Lt-Col Angel Vaquero, Enrique Dorado and Felipe Bayo, were sentenced to slightly shorter sentences. Bayo was the only to defendant to admit any participation in the crimes, an admission he later withdrew in unconvincing circumstances.
Rafael Vera, deputy interior minister under the Socialist government, already convicted for another GAL kidnapping, and a lawyer, Mr Jorge Argote, were both acquitted on charges of covering up the crimes.
The judges accepted evidence showing the victims were kidnapped in Bayonne, France, where many of the GAL crimes were committed. They were taken across the border to a disused palace at the disposal of the civil governor, where they were tortured for several weeks. They were then driven to Alicante, shot and buried in quicklime. Although their bones, showing clear signs of torture and bullet wounds, were found two years later, it was not until 1995 that they were identified as the two men who had "disappeared" in Bayonne 11 years earlier.
The judges announced their findings yesterday after 3 1/2 month hearings which were often dramatic. One of the accused was brought to court on the first day heavily sedated, and wearing only his underwear. Later, a senior police witness died of a heart attack in full view of the TV cameras which were broadcasting the case nationally.
The failure of the court to convict on the charge of membership of an armed gang, despite accepting evidence which pointed to the existence of just such a group, may make it more difficult to prosecute related GAL cases in the short term. But a judicial source told The Irish Times yesterday that the judges' caution will also make it much harder for any appeals to succeed. The fact that one Socialist leader goes to jail, while another walks free, increases the chance the convicted man may change his evidence and implicate even more senior figures, the source said.