Civil Guard agents inspect the remains of the vehicle exploded by a sticky bomb in Sallent de Gállego (Huesca), August 2000.
Manuel García-Castellón, Judge of the National Court, has again dropped the case of the murder of two Civil Guardsmen in Sallent de Gállego (Huesca) in 2000, committed by ETA. The judge reopened the case on February 23 to consider the genocide lawsuit against 10 former leaders of the terrorist group, filed by the Spanish Association Against Impunity and for the Promotion of Human Rights. After analyzing the complaint and in agreement with the prosecutor’s office, the instructor has concluded that this crime does not fit into this case, as stated in a resolution signed this Tuesday.
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The magistrate bases its decision on the case law of the Supreme Court and the Criminal Division of the National Court itself on genocide. In this sense, García-Castellón insists that the necessary conditions are not met for this crime to be included in the crime of Sallent de Gállego. “It is not possible to distinguish a characteristic element of the group because all the people involved – both victims and defendants – belong to the same national group,” the judge said. “Similarly, ethnic, racial or religious characteristics that are different and that characterize the group that is intended to be destroyed – in whole or in part – are not appreciated,” he adds.
The Spanish Association Against Impunity, headed by lawyer Miguel Ángel Rodríguez Arias, wanted to open a new avenue to prosecute the terrorist group’s crimes in court. The group claims ETA employed a “policy of attempted genocide” that would allow 327 of the band’s 379 unsolved crimes to be declared final. This lawsuit targeted 10 former ETA leaders: Miguel Gracia Arregui, Iñaki de Rentería; Mikel Albisu, Mikel Antza; Maria Soledad Iparraguirre, Anboto; Juan Carlos Iglesias, Gaddafi; Asier Oyarzabal, Baltza; Vicente Goicoetxea, Willy; Ainhoa Mugica, Olga; Ramon Sagarzazu, Ramontxo; Javier García Gaztelu, Txapote; and Juan Antonio Olarra, Jokin.
On August 20, 2000, the terrorist group murdered Civil Guardsmen Irene Fernández and José Ángel de Jesús, aged 32 and 22 respectively, in Sallent. The gang planted a sticky bomb on the Nissan Patrol as they prepared to begin their usual early-morning surveillance round.
This was one of the nine ETA crime charges that EL PAÍS said have been reopened in recent months to investigate the gang’s leaders. In the case of Sallent de Gállego, an attempt was made to pave the way for a genocide, while the rest of the investigations mainly target the leaders of the terrorist group as “intermediate perpetrators by domain” of the attacks committed by their subordinates, since they acted as a kind of intellectual initiator of crimes by having absolute control over ETA.
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