The first attack with 'bike-bomb' of ETA is settled with a condemned 33 years later

A session of the trial against Oscar Abad Palacios, José Ramón Martínez and Carmen Guisasola, in the National Court, in December 2022.FERNANDO ALVARADO ((EPA) EFE)

As usual, the policeman Ignacio Pérez Álvarez had gone on January 30, 1990 to the bar Los Claveles, Galdácano (Bizkaia, 29,285 inhabitants), to have an aperitif. On his way out, a few minutes before three in the afternoon, ETA was waiting for him. To kill him. The officer was 39 years old, with a wife and three minor children.

That crime — in which the gang used a bicycle bomb for the first time — has swelled the list of unsolved attacks for more than three decades. But, this June 1, the National Court has condemned one of the members of the Vizcaya command, Carmen Guisasola, for his involvement in the murder. The court has imposed 20 years in prison on the grounds that it is proven that he manufactured and provided the explosive that the material authors hid in a saddlebag of the bicycle-bomb, which they left leaning on a building next to the victim's car. A device that they activated by radio control when Ignacio Pérez opened the door of his Seat 124 to get on. "[The ETA] intervened decisively and decisively in the deadly action of Galdácano beyond all reasonable doubt," the magistrates emphasize.

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However, the National Court has acquitted Óscar Abad Palacios and José Ramón Martínez, whom the Prosecutor's Office accused as material authors of the crime. The court has concluded that there is insufficient evidence to convict them, in addition to ruling out that the self-incriminating statements they made in police headquarters after their arrest and later denied before the judge could be used against them.

"Although the conviction is for ordering the attack and acquitting the material authors, finally some light on this attack that was unresolved," said Carmen Ladrón de Guevara, lawyer of the majority AVT (Association of Victims of Terrorism), shortly after knowing the sentence. During the hearing, Abad and Martínez denied their involvement in the attack. For his part, Guisasola "remained silent," despite the fact that he repudiated the gang years ago — in fact, he was one of the members of the organization that took refuge in the Nanclares route when the terrorist organization was still alive.

In 2020, the National Court already acquitted the three accused (Guisasola, Abad and Martínez) considering that the facts had prescribed. But, in July 2022, the Supreme Court rejected that decision and ordered a retrial against the three. An oral hearing that took place in December last year.

"Habit Watch"

The Vizcaya command decided to attack the policeman Ignacio Pérez in the "first weeks of the year 1990", according to the judges of the National Court. The terrorists had "monitored" him for a while directly, to know in detail his habits. "Guisasola decided to end her life, as an action of the terrorist organization ETA, to which she belonged," insists the court, which lists the evidence collected against her. Among others, that one of his fingerprints was found in the house in Bilbao where "materials were found with which the explosive device used could be manufactured" in the crime.

Born in Villagatón (León, 650 inhabitants), Ignacio Pérez had been assigned to the Basque Country in 1979. At the time of the attack, he was part of the automotive section of the Basauri barracks. He had a wife and three children, ages 14, 10 and 5. According to the widow at the trial, one of her sons still "does not feel able to return to his land, which is Galdácano, because he cannot bear the memories." She is back, "but after spending 15 years away."

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