The ex-members of the terrorist group ETA Aitor Aguirrebarrena, alias ‘Peio’, and Asier Arzalluz, ‘Santi’, have acknowledged this Tuesday before the court of the Audiencia Nacional his participation in the murder of journalist José Luis López de Lacalle, perpetrated on May 7, 2000 in Andoain (Guipúzcoa).
“Yes, I recognize the facts”, both said in response to questions from the court, after which the prosecution, the private prosecution and the defense declined to make any interrogation.
The prosecutor has maintained this Tuesday in a trial at the Audiencia Nacional her request for 26 years in prison for the ETA members. Asier Arzalluz and Aitor Aguirrebarrena, after the confession of their participation in the murder.
The lawyer for the private prosecution, exercised by the widow and children of José Luis López de Lacalle, has requested 30 years in prison for each of the defendants, who have already been convicted in France for crimes related to the terrorist group and who have refused to allow their lawyer to issue a report at the hearing.
During her report, the prosecutor said that this case was reopened after the Guardia Civil received the following information a manuscript seized in France from the former head of ETA Íñigo Guridi Lasa, already convicted as the author of the four shots that killed López de Lacalle, in which reference is made to the participation in the attack of Asier Arzalluz and Aitor Aguirrebarrena.
And he recalled that for this attack he was also sentenced in 2009 to 30 years in prison. Francisco Javier García Gaztelu, Txapoteas the instigator of the attack.
Totto Commando
For the prosecutor it has been proven that as the leader of ETA’s military apparatus until his arrest in France on February 22, 2001, Txapote recruited Guridi Lasa so that he, in turn, would form with other people the Totto commando.
He added that after recruiting the two defendants, they were given various courses on the handling of weapons and explosives, and as the first action to be taken, they received the order to attack López de Lacalle.
With this objective in mind, the members of the commando found out his address and carried out for a week surveillance of his entrances and exits.
After having tried to kill the journalist on three occasions at around half past nine in the morning of May 7, 2000, they saw him enter the house, so Guridi Lasa approached him and shot him four times while Arzalluz was watching.
Then the two fled in the direction of the local ambulatory, where Aguirrebarrena was waiting for them in a vehicle.according to the account of the representative of the Prosecutor’s Office.
Necessary cooperation
The journalist died He was shot twice in the temple and the back of the neck, and twice in the thorax and abdomen, shot less than 50 centimeters away.
The prosecutor has requested the aforementioned sentence of 26 years in prison for each of the two defendants as necessary cooperators. in a terrorist crime of intentional infliction of death with the aggravating circumstance of malice aforethought.
He has also demanded that they be prohibited from approaching the widow and the victim’s two children for five years after their release and that to compensate them jointly with 300,506 euros.