The Prosecutor's Office asks for 2,354 years in prison for 'Josu Ternera' for the attack on the Zaragoza barracks

Jose Antonio Urrutikoetxea, 'Josu Ternera', leaves the Paris court on September 1 after being tried.IAN LANGSDON (EFE)

The Public Prosecutor's Office of the National Court requests 2,354 years in prison for the former head of ETA José Antonio Urrutikoetxea Bengoetxea,

, for the attack on the Zaragoza Civil Guard barracks in which 11 people died, six of them minors , and another 88 were wounded on December 14, 1987. In its indictment, to which EL PAÍS has had access, the Prosecutor's Office considers Ternera to be the perpetrator and necessary collaborator of 99 crimes of consummated or attempted murder, concluding that when the attack was committed was part of the ETA "executive committee" that made the decision to plant the car bomb that caused that massacre, the third with the most fatalities in the history of the terrorist organization.

In March of last year, when he appeared by videoconference from Paris before Judge Ismael Moreno so that he could be informed of the indictment for these events, Urrutikoetxea denied having had anything to do with that attack and requested that the case be archived.

The National High Court rejected it and in November decreed the opening of an oral trial.

However, he will have to wait until France, whose justice has already authorized the delivery of the former ETA chief for this attack, extradite him, which will not occur before Ternera is tried for a case pending in this country and, in case of being convicted, serve the sentence there.

Urrutikoetxea, who was arrested in May 2019 in the French Alps, has been on probation in France since July 2020 and since last August,

In its brief, the Prosecutor's Office considers it proven that Ternera "belonged uninterruptedly to the highest decision-making body of ETA" between 1975 and his first arrest, in January 1989, as allegedly responsible for the "international" and "political" apparatus of the terrorist organization.

"Urrutikoetxea has been one of the top leaders of ETA who has remained at the head of the terrorist organization for a longer period of time," emphasizes the public ministry.

Therefore, it concludes that he participated, as a member of the gang's "executive committee," in "the decision to carry out a large-scale terrorist action in response to the arrest" of another gang leader, Santiago Arróspide Sarasola,

, which occurred on September 30, 1987.

The Prosecutor's Office indicates that Ternera participated in a meeting "held in the south of France on an unspecified date" that year in which the so-called

of ETA, made up of Henri Parot and two other French citizens, was allegedly ordered to move to Zaragoza to plant a car bomb in the Guardia Civil headquarters.

The then heads of ETA Francisco Múgica,

, and José María Arregi,

, already sentenced in 2003 for this attack.

These last two were the ones who gave the specific instructions to the terrorists to mount the device in a vehicle, in what would be the first time that the armed gang used this procedure and, furthermore, against an unprecedented target: a facility that housed the agent families.

ETA claimed responsibility for that attack only three days after the explosion.

For all these reasons, the Prosecutor's Office asks Ternera for 30 years in prison for consummated murder for each of the 11 fatalities, and 23 years for attempted murder for each of the 88 injured.

Ternera is currently in France, where he was acquitted last September of a crime belonging to ETA between 2011 and 2013 in the first trial held against him after his arrest in 2019. The historic ETA leader has yet to appear before a French court to answer to the accusation of "association of malefactors with terrorist purposes" -equivalent to the crime of integration into a terrorist organization of the Spanish Penal Code- between December 2002 (shortly after he went into hiding after being summoned by the Supreme Court to take his statement by his participation, precisely, for the Zaragoza attack) and May 2005. This is a repetition of the trial held in 2010, when he was sentenced in absentia to seven years in prison.

Until this hearing is held, there is a final judgment and,

When he was arrested, in 2019, the National Court demanded that France surrender him for four reasons.

In addition to the attack on the Zaragoza barracks, the French justice has already authorized his extradition to be tried for the case in which the financing of ETA through the

Of the other two, one was for the open summary for a crime of crimes against humanity in which other former ETA chiefs are also prosecuted, such as Garikoitz Aspiazu,

;

Mikel Carrera,

and Ángel Iriondo,

The French justice rejected this request considering that this crime does not exist in the French penal code.

The fourth cause is due to the 1980 attack in Vitoria that cost the life of Luis María Hergueta, director of the Michelin company.

France agreed to grant it in the first instance, but Ternera appealed the decision and the French judges have yet to rule.

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