The last leaders of the Galician Resistance accept 28 years in prison for terrorism

The leaders of Resistencia Galega, Asunción Losada and Antón García, sitting in the first bench of the National Court, this Monday. JJ Guillén (EFE)

Antón García Matos and Asunción Losada, considered the last two leaders of the Galician Resistance terrorist group, have accepted this Monday a sentence of 28 years and 3 months in prison in the trial held against them at the National Court. The two leaders have thus ratified the agreement reached with the Prosecutor's Office, which initially requested 51 years in prison for both of them for leading this group with the aim of achieving the independence of Galicia, "justifying the use of violence against people and property as the only means to achieve their goals”.

The oral hearing barely lasted five minutes. With a brief "yes", both García and Losada have admitted the accusations of the Prosecutor's Office, which has attributed the crimes of participation in a terrorist group as a leader, false documents, illegal possession of weapons and manufacture of explosives. Two other defendants in the trial, Xoán Manuel Sánchez and Miguel García Nogales, have also confessed their integration into the gang and have accepted the agreed sentences: three years in prison for the first; and four years and six months for the second.

Only García Nogales has exercised his right to the last word in the trial. “I consider that neither me nor my brothers are defined by the adjective terrorist. My militancy was never oriented towards terror, but quite the opposite: towards love. I militate to spread love to Galicia, which is a country that is in danger of extinction”, he said.

Matos and Losada, who were arrested in 2019 upon returning to Galicia after remaining in hiding in Portugal and Venezuela for a decade, are considered the heads of Resistencia Galega, an armed movement that they designed in 2005 and which inherited the structure of the Guerrilheiro Army. do Povo Galego Ceive, according to the researchers. The Supreme Court itself confirmed in 2014 the “terrorist” nature of this gang, which seeks to “achieve its objectives behind the backs of democratic mechanisms”: “For the defense of Galician independence, it admits [the use of] force and violence as the way to achieve its objectives, [...] being among its tasks the violent attacks against assets and people with the purpose of subverting the constitutional order, ”said the ruling.

According to the report of the Prosecutor's Office, Resistencia Galega has not perpetrated any attack since 2014. The last one, committed in October of that year, consisted of placing an explosive device in the Baralla City Hall (Lugo), whose deflagration destroyed part of the House Council of the municipality and caused material damage to adjoining buildings. The Exército Guerrilheiro do Povo Galego Ceive, which acted from 1987 to 1991, left three dead in an attack on the Clangor nightclub in Santiago de Compostela and shot dead a civil guard in Irixoa (A Coruña).

At the time of their arrest, the Civil Guard explained that the two leaders of the gang had continued to give orders to "a group of followers" during their stay abroad.

According to the investigators, the contacts of both allowed the Galician Resistance "to maintain the technical knowledge and experience for the manufacture of explosive devices."