Admiral General Chief of Staff of the Navy (AJEMA), Antonio Martorell Lacave, died this Friday at the Gómez Ulla Military Hospital in Madrid at the age of 62 due to a serious illness, as reported by the Ministry of Defense.
The head of the Navy had held this position since February 2021. “It is a very sad day for the Ministry of Defense, for the Navy and for all the Armed Forces,” the department said in a statement, which has reported that the Defense Minister, Margarita Robles, has already conveyed her condolences to her family and friends.
Born in Bilbao in 1960, Martorell was the youngest and newest member of the current military leadership. He entered the Marín Naval Military School in 1979 and received his office as Ensign in 1984. Throughout his 44-year career, he has been commander of the minesweeper Miño and the minehunter Turia, he has been in charge of of the first squadron of Countermine Measures, of the Permanent Group number two of NATO and of the amphibious ship Castilla.
Among his destinations on land, he was a professor at the Escuela Superior de las Fuerzas Armadas, head of the Torpedo Workshop of the Arsenal de Cartagena, has been assigned three times to the General Staff of the Navy, has been head of the European Union Area of the General Directorate for Defense Policy and head of the Exercise Section at the NATO Joint Headquarters in Naples.
Martorell was a General Staff Diploma, a specialist in Submarine Weapons and completed, among others, the Advanced Tactics Officer and Communications aptitude courses. He also took various courses abroad.
Led the anti-piracy operation
Among other responsibilities, in 2014 he was promoted to rear admiral and appointed Chief of the Logistics Division of the Navy General Staff and, in 2015, he was appointed Commander of Naval Action Group 2.
In 2017 he was appointed admiral of Naval Action and on June 23 of that year he was promoted to vice admiral. Between March and October 2019, he was also Commander of the European Union’s Operation Atalanta against piracy in the Indian Ocean. After that, he was appointed Commander of the High Readiness Maritime Headquarters.
Thus, on May 19, 2020, he was promoted to Admiral and appointed Admiral of the Fleet. Since 2021 he held the position of Chief of Staff of the Navy (AJEMA) replacing Admiral Teodoro López Calderón, current JEMAD. His death due to a serious and sudden illness will force the minister to appoint a substitute, retouching the military leadership that he intended to maintain until the end of the legislature.
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