José Ignacio Fernández Guaza, the fugitive ultra who was tracked down by EL PAÍS in Buenos Aires (Argentina) after years of fleeing Spain for the murder of 19-year-old student Arturo Ruiz in 1977, has a past that includes the dirty war against ETA. The shooter told this newspaper that he was part of a commando that is said to have killed members of the terrorist group in southern France in the mid-1970s. According to him, his group consisted of 15 civilians with military training, worked for the Guardia Civil and received money from the reserved funds.
Fernández Guaza claims that his victims, whose identities he avoids revealing, belonged to “the highest hierarchy” of the Basque terrorist organization. The summary of the Arturo Ruiz case contains testimonies and clues linking this shooter to the Guardia Civil and the dirty war against ETA.
According to the refugee, the actions of the group to which the Ultra belonged were developed in collaboration with the French police. And they coincide with the bombing campaign and attacks by right-wing extremist groups against ETA after the gang’s fatal attack on former Prime Minister Luis Carrero Blanco in 1973.
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—We have crossed the border [entre España y Francia] to search for information and also to catch an ETA boy. […] I was always paid very well. I am very good at my job. […] They paid us cash.
Armed with Ingram submachine guns, the ultra-militias stayed in safe houses, where they stayed for up to two months, according to the refugee. The group killed their victims at close range.
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– The General Directorate of Security knew what was happening. […] We had carte blanche. […] We approached them and killed them as they did. Nothing with a rifle with a scope. […] We also destroyed their economic apparatus. We blow up restaurants and stores. We touched where it hurt the most: the money.
The Guardia Civil barracks in Guernica (Bizkaia) and Bilbao served, the septuagenarian continues, as a base for an organization that worked in coordination with the French secret services.
― Gernika, Bilbao, Lekeitio (Bizkaia). They were our houses.
The mystery of the DNI
The man who killed Arturo Ruiz is missing a DNI from Spanish police databases, despite having international search and arrest warrants issued against him that have already expired, EL PAÍS has confirmed. A gesture with which the Ultra thanks its patrons.
“They were people who cared about me. They told me, “Let’s make him disappear.” I never existed.
A police source justifies that the killer has no DNI in connection with the protective cover that protected the far-right commandos who collaborated in the dirty war. “It is very serious and unusual. Four decades ago, before digitalization, it might have been easier to hide information. Only a small group of officers accessed the data,” a state police inspector added.
Fernández Guaza disappeared from Spain in January 1977 after twice shooting high school student Arturo Ruiz during a demonstration for amnesty for political prisoners in the heart of Madrid. It happened the day before the massacre of the Atocha labor lawyers. Four lawyers and an employee at a Madrid law firm linked to workers’ commissions and the Communist Party died in the far-right attack, which kicked off a week in which small fascist groups maneuvered to galvanize democracy.
The escape allowed the shooter to avoid trial, prison and certain punishment and, according to Fernández Guaza, was forged by driving from Irún (Gipuzkoa) to Paris with a false passport created by the “Spanish security services”. The Ultra remained hidden in a small apartment in the French capital for a year.
“I left Paris because ETA was after me.
After leaving France, the gunman lived for a year in Buenos Aires and later in Ingeniero Maschwitz, a community of 15,000 people 45 kilometers from the Argentine capital, where he purchased a house in the name of one of his three children.
The nearly 800-page summary of the Arturo Ruiz case includes four witness statements pointing to the Ultra’s relationship with the Guardia Civil and the dirty war. Her partner of seven years, C. Chacón, told instructors in 1977 that it was common to see weapons in their home on Calle López de Hoyos in Madrid because her boyfriend “worked for the Civil Guard and the police.” He added that the killer was a member of an Olympic shooting club in Madrid and owned a sword. [arma parecida a un fusil, pero de cañón más largo], a gun and ammunition. And he explained that Fernández Guaza was “frequently” absent from the house, without revealing his destination. “One time he told me he was going north,” Chacón recalls.
The refugee’s ex-girlfriend also stated that Fernández Guaza called him the day after the student’s murder and asked him to send a money order for 15,000 pesetas (90 euros) to the Civil Guard at the Gernika J. García Cabrera barracks. The investigation never revealed what the payment was for. The agent confirmed this information to the police and stated that he had a “relationship of trust” with the ultra, whom he met in 1975 at a mass in Bilbao in honor of a colleague who died in an attack.
MR Fernández, the fugitive’s sister, confessed to police that she was guarding her relative’s suitcase containing dozens of 9-millimeter Parabellum caliber cartridges. This is the ammunition used in most of the far right’s attacks against ETA.
Ultra J. Serrano Rodríguez de Verges told the instructors that he once traveled to Bilbao with Fernández Guaza, whom he met at an event organized by the far-right Fuerza Nueva party. He described the trip as a mission to “neutralize ETA’s actions.”
The right-wing extremist refugee Ignacio José Fernández Guaza in his home in Ingeniero Maschwitz (Buenos Aires), in October 2023. ENRIQUE GARCIA MEDINA
The judicial investigation ended with the conviction of Jorge Cesarsky, a Triple A-affiliated Argentine who was sentenced to six years in prison for terrorism and illegal possession of weapons, and served only one year for carrying the murder weapon. Fernández Guaza, who has never sat on the bench, has lived with impunity for 46 years.
The refugee recognizes his friendship with Juan Antonio González Pacheco, Billy el Niño, the police officer of the Social Political Brigade accused of torture by dozens of the dictatorship’s reprisals who died in 2020.
A mercenary from GAL (Anti-Terrorist Liberation Groups), the parapolice organization that murdered 27 ETA members between 1983 and 1987, told this newspaper that the majority of far-right commandos linked to the dirty war have “strong connections “conversed. at the brigade. Social politicians and the Civil Guard.
Revenge is the argument with which Fernández Guaza justifies his work for the state sewer system.
“My father was a soldier and a close friend of [Luis] White Carrero. What was the fault of the driver of the former Prime Minister who died in the attack? They were not there when the bomb was planted on Correo Street in Madrid [atentado de ETA en 1974 que causó 12 muertos y 71 heridos, que fue considerado la primera matanza masiva de civiles de la banda]. It is in human law. Eye for eye, tooth for tooth. It is very ugly when a mother comes to you at a funeral and says: Why did they kill my son?
The gunman has no regrets about killing Ruiz and prides himself on keeping evidence of his glass story safe.
“I’m 76 years old, but I have a head like a CPU.
After the death of Francisco Franco in 1975, far-right terrorism operated under different acronyms. The Spanish Basque Battalion (BVE), the Anti-Communist Apostolic Alliance (Triple A) and the Spanish Armed Groups (GAE) were the most active organizations. To bridge the transition and respond to ETA, the parapolice militias committed 60 murders between 1975 and 1982, according to the study “Terrorism in Spain” (Ministry of the Interior).
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