The Ertzaintza has accredited the judge of the National Court Alejandro Abascal that when ETA attacked the Basque Police station in Ondarroa (Vizcaya) with a car bomb, on September 21, 2008, the terrorist organization was led by the four former ETA leaders against whom Dignity and Justice (D&J) sued. In a report to which LA RAZÓN has had access, the Ertzaintza Central Intelligence Office concludes that “among the ETA militants who were members of its governing body at the time the car bomb was planted” were Garikoitz Aspiazu, “Cherokee” y Aitzol Iriondo in the “military apparatus”; Mikel Kabikoitz Carrera Sarobe, “Ata”, in the “logistical apparatus”; and Ainhoa Ozaeta in the treasury.
After reaching his hands this document on the composition of the entire command structure of ETA at the time of the attack, the instructor has already urged the Prosecutor’s Office and the rest of the parties involved to take a position on “the practice of additional investigative procedures or the interrogation of those investigated”.
The attack against the Ertzaintza police station did not cause fatalities, but did injure 18 (thirteen of them regional agents). The explosion of the car bomb – which contained 100 kilos of ammonal reinforced with high explosive – caused a crater with a radius of three meters and numerous material damages.
“We are not going to look at the color of the uniform”
The Ertzaintza recalls that ETA claimed responsibility for the attack through the newspaper Gara on November 6, 2008, assuring: “If it weren’t for the uniform, it would be difficult to separate an ertzaina from a civil guard. Changing your performance depends on the PNV. In the meantime, we will resist with all our might those who want to set foot in this country. We are not going to look at the color of the uniform.”
For these events, the ETA members were already sentenced to almost 300 years in prison Ibon Iparraguirre and Asier Badiola. That sentence of May 2013 is precisely one of the arguments invoked by the Ertzaintza in its report to link the former ETA chiefs under investigation. According to the proven facts, recalls the person in charge of Intelligence of the regional Police, it was “Txeroki” who indicated to the members of the “commando” the objectives to be carried out, “to attack the Ertzaintza”, indicating that “he would provide them with a car bomb fully prepared.”
In the DyJ complaint that reopened the investigation, the lawyer Miguel Ángel Rodríguez Arias drew attention to the coincidence of the modus operandi with the preparations for the assassination of the Luis Conde brigade in Santoña (Santander): in both cases the ETA leadership made available of their “commandos” a vehicle with explosives to commit the criminal action, which the terrorists had to recognize by the placement of a loaf of bread on the dashboard.
Likewise, it refers to the statements made in July 2008 after being arrested by the ETA member Arkaitz Goicoechea, who explained that “Txeroki” was responsible for transmitting the orders and “telling him what to do” and Iriondo was in charge, together with Garikoitz Aspiazu, of getting the material to them. Another testimony, that of the ETA member Atitor Cotano (arrested in that same operation) in relation to the attempt to assassinate the then judge of the National Court Fernando Grande-Marlaska in Ezcaray (La Rioja) highlighted that “Txeroki” gave the members of the “commando” a driving and preparation of explosives in December 2006 in Capbreton (France). Along the same lines, remember the report, the ETA member River Beobide pointed out in February 2010 “Txeroki” and “Ata” as responsible for ETA.
“High level of decision-making capacity”
The author of the report admits that “it is difficult to make an exact list of the composition of the different leaderships of the terrorist organization ETA at a given moment.” However, he adds, “it seems clear that the heads of the apparatus, as well as some members who have stood out for their special charisma and performance in prominent functions, they have had a high level of decision-making capacity, both in determining the general strategy and in approving and executing specific actions”.
The document coincides with the analysis of the Police and Civil Guard in other cases against former ETA chiefs for their alleged responsibility in the attacks committed under their command: the ETA leadership -he emphasizes- transmitted the instructions to the “operational commands” about “the actions to be carried out, so when these are carried out the ETA-M leadership already knows in advance who has committed themso that the wording of the statement in which it assumes or claims its authorship can be instantaneous”.
The responsibility and decision to issue the statement claiming the attack, he stresses, therefore, “comes without a doubt from the executive committee of ETA in France”, although its writing and publication is a task entrusted to the “political apparatus” and, within this, his press and propaganda office.
Once a communiqué was issued through the media, the Ertzaintza asserts, ETA “intends with this that there is general knowledge that it has been ETA as an armed organization that assumes responsibility for the attacks committed by its commandos and therefore is responsible for the consequences of them derived.
“Comply with the decision” by the Zuba
Although the members of the executive committee “are not physically and personally in each one of the movements, actions, terrorist attacks, etc. carried out by the members of the terrorist band,” he explains, they were in charge of “designing the band’s strategy and direct all the means to achieve it”. Each person in charge of the “devices” was thus in charge within those structures of “enforcing what was decided” within the executive committee.
ETA has been a perfectly structured organization -he emphasizes- “where each one of its components has had a mission and has found subject to the discipline and orders that the executive committee has issued at all times”. In this sense, he alludes, for example, to a zutabe (internal bulletin of the criminal gang) from April 2003 that includes the presentations of the ETA assembly in 2002 on “the willingness of the militant to comply with the guidelines and objectives of the organization”.
“It can be inferred that ETA has been a perfectly structured organization -defends the Ertzaintza-, where each of its components has had a mission and was subject to a discipline, under the orders of those dictated by the components of their organization or executive committee”.