POLITICS-SPAIN: ETA Car-Bomb Kills 3, Injures 38

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Tito Drago

MADRID, Oct 30 2000 (IPS) - A Supreme Court judge, his driver and his bodyguard were killed and 38 others injured Monday in the Spanish capital by a car-bomb explosion blamed on the Basque separatist group ETA.

The powerful explosion also destroyed some 50 homes and dozens of vehicles, including a city bus, whose driver is in serious medical condition.

With Monday’s deaths, Euskadi ta Askatasuna (ETA, ‘Basque Fatherland and Freedom’ in the Basque language) has claimed a total of 56 victims in Madrid alone since the group arose in the 1960s.

ETA is blamed for 19 deaths nationwide since December 1999, when it broke the unilateral ceasefire it had maintained for nearly a year and a half.

During the truce, a delegation from the Spanish government met once with ETA leaders to negotiate an end to the violence, but the talks proved unsuccessful.

The 69-year-old judge, José Francisco Querol Lombardero, who also held the rank of general, was killed alongside his driver, Armando Medina, and bodyguard, Jesús Escudero García, when a bomb went off in an automobile near their car as it approached a traffic light.

The explosive was apparently detonated by remote control as the vehicle carrying Querol to the courthouse passed by the car-bomb.

Querol’s driver Medina was a member of the General Union of Workers (UGT, allied with PSOE, Spanish Socialist Workers Party), which called a nationwide protest for Tuesday in response to the terrorist attack.

Peace and human rights organisations convoked demonstrations Monday in Madrid and in the Basque cities of Bilbao, San Sebastian and Vitoria, with further protests slated for Tuesday throughout Spain.

The country’s other major trade union, the Workers Commissions (CCOO, pro-communist), threw its support behind the UGT, as did all political parties except Euskal Herritarrok (EH), a Basque coalition linked to ETA, and which won 14 percent of the vote in the latest elections held in that region.

José María Aznar, president of the Spanish government, and King Juan Carlos both sharply condemned the attack.

The blast occurred during the morning hours just as Madrid’s residents were heading to work. The car carrying the judge, driver and bodyguard took much of the impact of the explosion and was thrown eight metres, bursting into flames upon impact.

The driver of the passing bus is now fighting to survive the injuries he sustained from the explosion. The lower half of a 15- story building was left uninhabitable, as were numerous housing units nearby.

In the minutes following the attack, dozens of cars were ablaze and emergency units struggled to set up medical services in the street.

A resident of the district, Pedro García, said he heard the explosion and, turning to look, he saw the car flying through the air amid the deafening roar.

Children at two nearby schools fled to the patios after the blast as the buildings filled with foul-smelling smoke.

Another neighbour, Félix San Juan, said he was lucky the telephone rang before he left for work. “Otherwise I would have been at the site of the explosion just as the tragedy occurred,” he told Spain’s Radio Nacional.

Josu Jon Imas, spokesman for the Basque autonomous government, denounced the attack. “ETA is soiling the image of the Basque people because it only shows contempt for democracy in pursuing blackmail and violence,” he stated.

“ETA talks about democracy but does not recognise it, and invokes the people but does not respect their decision in favour of peace,” Imas added. The Basque government rules by a coalition made up of the moderate Basque Nationalist Party (PNV) and its offshoot, Eusko Alkartasuna (EA).

Javier Delgado, president of the Supreme Court of Justice, decried the bombing as yet another blow to peaceful coexistence.

Santiago Martínez Bares, president of the Professional Association of the Magistrature, also condemned the violence, saying “terrorist barbarism will not change one bit the application of justice according to the State of Law.”

Monday’s attack coincided with the sentencing of ETA leader Francisco Múgica Garmendia, known as ‘Pakito,’ to 30 years in prison. He was the separatist group’s maximum leader until his arrest two years ago for the Sep 12, 1989 assassination of public prosecutor Carmen Tagle.

At a hearing last week, Múgica Garmendia pointed his finger at the judges and shouted, “All of you are Carmen Tagle!”