Victims of terrorism honor the 188 national police officers murdered by ETA and other groups

There was already a book of these characteristics, says Víctor Valentín Cotobal, vice president of DyJ, but it only had 186 victims, and just the fact that two police officers were left out of that edition, justifies republishing this work. The prologue of this new installment has been left in the hands of Teresa Jimenez Becerrilnumber two of the Ombudsman and victim of ETA since 1998, when the terrorist group murdered his brother Alberto, PP councilor in Seville, and his wife, Ascen. «I don’t want to imagine the helplessness of the police in the face of so much injury to their deceased colleagues, it is similar to what I feel when Alberto’s murderer was honored… It is necessary to remember their names (those of the victims), their age, where “They were born, where they were killed and why,” highlights the prologue written by Becerril.

The presentation event was led by the president of DyJ, Daniel Portero, its vice president, Víctor Valentín Cotobal, Teresa Jiménez Becerril herself and Alberto Negri, president of the Orphan Foundation of the National Police Corps (CNP), who wanted emphasize that the event took place in what was the old chapel of the orphanage of “children of fallen comrades in acts of service”, now converted into a memorial for those 188 national police victims of terrorism, whose names are engraved on the tiles that flank the room, and whose lives this work of Dignity and Justice rescues. Commissioners of the National Police and the national deputy of Vox Javier Ortega Smith have also been present.

Of those 188 police officers who were victims of terrorism, 150 were murdered by ETA (the rest by other groups such as the Grapo or jihadism), whose shadow, always so long, has had a certain prominence during the event. Daniel Portero recalled that during the years of terror, the terrorist group set targets: 766 police officers national. “This body has not only been a victim of the pain of loss, it has also been a victim of fear and persecution,” said the president of DyJ. The truth is that of the 188 murders, 76 are unsolved, 40% of the total. “You can’t forget while more than half of the cases are unsolved,” therefore, “You can never say” that the terrorist group ETA “has ended,” says Portero.

That is the primary mission of this association that has numerous cases open in court against leaders of the ETA leadership. “In many cases We don’t know exactly who the author was. material of a murder, but we do know who the senior leaders in the organization were,” that is why Dignidad y Justicia advocates that those leaders “be applied the doctrine of command responsibility.” And beyond the courts, “this book serves to fight against the story,” said the vice president of DyJ.

“When they murdered police officers, they did so under the premise that torture was being carried out at police headquarters,” but “the first ones who tortured were them,” Portero pointed out, after giving the case of the two chief inspectors murdered and tortured in Saint Jean de Luz (France) on April 4, 1976, Jesús María González Ituero and José Luis Martínez Martínez.

Criticism of the latest grievances committed by the Government towards the victims of terrorism, such as the new reform of the Citizen Security law agreed with Bildu that restricts certain actions of the Security Forces, marked the question time. Portero has limited himself to advocating for something that is already requested in the field of the judiciary, “that the attorney general of the State be elected by the prosecutors, that the president of the General Council of the Judiciary (CGPJ) be elected by the judges,” and that the senior officers of the Security Forces are chosen by the body, “that would give independence image».

Dignity and Justice fights for the reopening and clarification of murders that have prescribed, causes that even predate the Amnesty law of 1977. «With that law the same thing happened that is happening now with the Catalan independence movement“We forget what happened a few years ago,” said Daniel Portero. “We owe a lot to the victims, also to those who were murdered before the year 77,” said Jiménez Becerril.

The event ended with a request by the vice president of the association for all police stations to be named after one of the 188 victims. “We are where we are because others gave their lives for the rule of law, they are victims who represented a pillar of our democracy and Constitution», commented Cotobal.