On October 17, 1984, Vicente Gajate, 33, a native of Salamanca, married with two children, was assassinated in Renteria by ETA gunmen. This municipal policeman parked his vehicle near his house at 10:00 p.m. He was returning from work when several bullets were waiting for him around the corner. Affiliated with the PSOE and the UGT, his death shocked his neighbors, who came out en masse to protest the attack. “ETA traitors, you kill workers,” they chanted angrily in the town square. Two years later, the National Court sentenced the members of the ‘Pepe Barros command’ to 29 years in prison as the perpetrators of the crime.
The pistols used by the ETA members José Ramón Zabaleta, Francisco Javier Garmendia and Andrés Michelena to assassinate the municipal agent are part of the arsenal that the National Court ordered to destroy in September 2016. Four and a half years have passed since the Court’s Government Chamber Central office, which was then the current Minister of the Interior Fernando Grande-Marlaska, unanimously agreed to eliminate the nearly 1,400 weapons seized from ETA and the Grapo between 1977 and 2005. A material that has been subject to historical summaries on terrorism and whose The judicial journey came to an end after the trials and the pertinent verification by the Scientific Police.
Today a symbolic act will be held at the Duque de Ahumada College of Young Guards, in Valdemoro (Madrid), to execute the decision of the National Court. A process of definitive destruction of 1,377 complete weapons and 19 fundamental pieces that remained in the custody of the Weapons Intervention Unit of the Madrid Civil Guard Command.
The National Court authorized in 2016 the elimination of this material subject to summaries on terrorism
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The event will have a marked political aspect despite its judicial origin. It will be attended by Pedro Sánchez and Minister Grande-Marlaska, then president of the Criminal Chamber of the Audience. In addition, senior officials of the Basque Government, judges, police, prosecutors or victims’ associations are invited. After that, the 697 pistols, 172 revolvers, 274 submachine guns and the rest of assault rifles, precision rifles or smooth-bore shotguns will be smelted.
90% of the material to be eliminated corresponds to ETA. It was seized from different commands in that time span of 28 years. It is worth noting the infrastructures that the terrorist group had in Navarra, Barcelona, Vizcaya, Gupúzcoa or Madrid, which over time were dismantled under the name of different ‘taldes’. For example, the Motrico command in 1978, Donibane in 1981, the aforementioned Pepe Barios who murdered Vicente Gajate, Olloki in 1986, Txalupa in 1987, Txarito in 1988, Lamboa in 1994, Sugoy and Galiza in 1996, Andalucía in 1998 and Bakartzo in 2002.
This last command was responsible for the murder of the socialist councilor Juan Priede in March 19 years ago in Orio (Guipúzcoa) .The 69-year-old Asturian mayor, father of three children, was shot three times in the back at the bar where he used to drink coffee. . For these events, Ignacio Javier Bilbao and Unai Bilbao would be sentenced to 45 years in prison.
90% of the pistols, revolvers, submachine guns or shotguns seized were used by at least 11 ETA commandos
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In addition to the pistol that killed Priede, 10% of the seized weapons that will be destroyed were from the Grapo. The Star pistols, the nine millimeters or the Astra revolvers stand out. It was intervened after the dismantling of various commands in Madrid, Barcelona or Santiago de Compostela in the eighties.
After Valdemoro’s act, the 1,377 weapons will be transferred by the Civil Guard to a foundry, minutes of the process will be drawn up and the National Court will be informed. This item does not include weapons subject to judicial procedures still under investigation, ETA crimes without solving, for example, or those delivered by the French authorities in February 2018, which were part of more than 50 criminal proceedings instituted in the country neighbor between 1999 and 2009.
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