The judge cites six former ETA chiefs as being investigated for the deadly attack in Santa Pola

State of the Civil Guard barracks in Santa Pola (Alicante) after the ETA car bomb attack that killed a six-year-old girl and a 47-year-old man on August 4, 2002. DIEGO/ ALICANTE INFORMATION

The judge of the National High Court, Manuel García Castellón, has agreed to take statements as defendants from six former ETA chiefs for the attack committed, on August 4, 2002, against the headquarters of the Civil Guard in Santa Pola (Alicante), which left two dead —one of the two, a six-year-old girl— and more than fifty wounded.

The magistrate's decision comes after receiving reports from the Civil Guard and the National Police that identify Juan Antonio Olarra, alias

, as leaders of the organization on that date ;

Ainhoa ​​Mujika,

;

Mikel Albisu,

;

Maria Soledad Iparragirre,

;

Ramón Sagarzazu,

;

and Felix Ignacio Esparza Luri,

.

The judge had reopened the case last March by admitting a complaint from the Dignity and Justice victims' association, which is trying to open a new way in court to condemn the former ETA chiefs as "mediate perpetrators by domination" of the attacks committed by his subordinates —a kind of intellectual instigators of the crimes, having absolute control of the gang—.

Of the six former ETA leaders now indicted, Olarra, Mujika, Iparraguirre and Esparza are currently serving various sentences in prison for other crimes, the last one in a prison in France.

Antza and Ramontxo are free.

According to police reports, they were all part of the

—the leadership of ETA, in the jargon of terrorists— at the time of the events.

In 2012, the National High Court already sentenced the two material authors of the Santa Pola attack to 843 years in prison: Óscar Celarain and Andoni Otegi.

According to the court, both "indiscriminately and coldly sought" to cause the greatest "damage and possible victims" by placing "without prior notice" a car bomb with 100 kilos of explosives next to the houses of the barracks.

Regarding Olarra, the judge highlights in his order that he assumed the leadership of the so-called "military apparatus" of ETA, responsible for its commands, in February 2001, after the fall of his previous head, Javier García Gaztely,

.

Since then, he and his sentimental partner.

Ainhoa ​​Mujika were in charge of "giving the orders to commit attacks on the commandos operating in Spain", a responsibility that they only abandoned after the arrest of both in France in September 2002. For this reason, the Civil Guard report places both integrated into the executive committee that made the decision to commit the Santa Pola attack.

Olarra and Mujika, who serve as spokespersons for the group of ETA prisoners (the EPPK in its acronym in Basque) will soon be transferred to prisons in the Basque Country.

From this last position, they led the internal debate that led to the statement from the inmates of the gang in which they requested the end of tributes to ETA prisoners when they are released, known as

.

The Civil Guard report also places another couple, the one formed by Mikel Albisu,

and Soledad Iparraguirre,

.

Both recently appeared as defendants also for their status as leaders of the gang when the PP councilor Miguel Ángel Blanco was kidnapped and murdered, but they refused to testify.

Antza was since 1994 the leader of the "political apparatus" of the organization.

Anboto, who was responsible for the commandos, was in charge of the finances of the armed gang since the end of 1998.

The two were arrested on October 3, 2004 in the French town of Salies de Bearn.

The police document concludes that, until that day, the couple was part of the ETA executive committee that made decisions, such as committing attacks.

The last two defendants, Esparza Luri and Sagarzazu Gaztelumendi, are also located by the specialists in the fight against terrorism at the top of the gang on that date.

The first was responsible for the so-called “logistics apparatus”.

The second, of the so-called “international apparatus”.

In his order, the judge endorses the conclusions of the police reports included in the case and points out that the executive committee to which the six ETA members now accused allegedly belonged in August 2002 "worked in a collegiate manner, and decisions were made in it." strategic and sometimes tactical of greater relevance”.

García-Castellón adds that "this function included the design, planning, coordination, direction and sometimes also the authorization of certain terrorist attacks that were materialized by the operational commands."

For all these reasons, the judicial resolution concludes that all of them presumably participated in the August 2002 attack and, therefore, they should be called to testify as investigators.

With that of Santa Pola, there are already seven summaries for ETA attacks that have been reactivated in recent months and that narrow the siege of 23 former ETA leaders.

In addition to the crime in the town of Alicante and the kidnapping and death of Miguel Ángel Blanco, former heads of the terrorist organization are being investigated as mediate authors (inducers) of the murder of popular councilor Gregorio Ordóñez;

the attack against magistrate Francisco Querol, where the judge and other people lost their lives;

the attack against the T-4 of the Barajas airport, with two deaths;

the attack against the Ertzaintza police station in Ondarroa (Bizkaia) in 2008, and the attack in Sangüesa (Navarra) in 2003, which caused the death of two policemen.