On July 4, a phrase by Borja Giménez Larraz resonated strongly in a courtroom located in the second basement of the National Court. “That man was the one who shot my father on May 6, 2001,” he insisted from a room set up for protected witnesses, thus pointing out the ETA member Mikel Kabikoitz Carrera Sarobe, alias Atta, who was listening to him just a few meters away, sitting on the dock for murdering his father, Manuel Giménez Abad, former president of the PP of Aragon, from behind. This week, two months after that oral hearing and more than 22 years after the crime, the court ruled in favor of the victim’s son and sentenced the terrorist to 30 years in prison. Giménez Larraz, who was 17 years old at the time of the attack, witnessed the crime firsthand: when his father was shot, she was walking with him to the La Romareda stadium (Zaragoza) to watch a soccer match.
At the same time, the court has acquitted ETA member Miren Itxaso Zaldúa, who was accused of providing cover for her partner in the murder, due to lack of evidence. After the trial, the court has already released Zaldúa, who is credited with the nickname Sahatsa. Ata, who became the leader of ETA, is currently imprisoned, since France sentenced him to life imprisonment for murdering two unarmed civil guards in Capbreton in 2007 (Fernando Trapero and Raúl Centeno); and the French police officer Jean-Serge Nérin, in 2010.
With this sentence, communicated this Friday and signed by two of the three judges who made up the court, the National Court considers one of ETA’s crimes that remained unsolved clarified. The story of the ruling is overwhelming: “On May 6, 2001, Ata was in Zaragoza in his capacity as a member of the terrorist group, with the aim of attempting to kill Giménez Abad,” begins the part of the text dedicated to the “proven facts”. Around 6:30 p.m., after the politician left the house on his way to soccer with his teenage son, the terrorist “approached them from behind and fired two shots at point-blank range.” [a su objetivo]”. With the victim already on the ground, defenseless, she fired a third shot at him. In the head. “Witnessing [Giménez Larraz] the whole scene”, emphasizes the ruling.
At the time of the crime, in addition to being president of the PP of Aragon, the popular man was a senator and regional deputy. He was 53 years old. He left a wife and two children, Borja and Manuel. The latter, after learning of Ata’s 30-year sentence, spoke out this Friday in Radio Zaragoza: “It doesn’t lessen the pain of losing my father, but it comforts. [Ha sido] a long road, many years and with many uncertainties. It is a sentence that reinforces, even more so, the trust that as citizens we have to have in our democracy, which is what my father and other victims of terrorism fought for.” The family’s lawyer, Carmen Ladrón de Guevara, has also shown her satisfaction at “crossing out one more case from the list of unresolved cases”: “Although 20 years later, justice is done.”
The majority of the court – judges Francisco Viera and María Riera – conclude that there is “absolutely convincing” evidence to convict Carrera as the material author. Among others, the judges give great value to the son’s statement, who saw the face of the murderer; to ballistic reports; and the story of three protected witnesses who were at the scene of the attack and who located Ata there, whom they identified. All of their statements “fully harmonize,” explains the resolution, dated last Monday: “And their value lies in the fact that they all coincide in identification, but based on very personal stories that deny any risk or contagion, among other things, because said witnesses do not know each other.”
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However, Judge José Ricardo de Prada has issued a dissenting vote, considering that not enough evidence has been presented against Carrera. The magistrate affirms that, although there is evidence against him, these do not have “sufficient entity and consistency” to consider him the material author of the attack “beyond all reasonable doubt.” The identification of Ata as the shooter did not occur until more than a decade after the murder. In 2001, when the crime was committed, the security forces had no evidence that the ETA member was part of the gang and, therefore, they never showed his photograph to witnesses. That circumstance changed years later. In 2014, the Civil Guard called Borja Giménez to show him a battery of images of suspects, among which was that of Ata —captured in 2010—. The victim’s son claims that he did not know who he was at the time, but he identified him “without a doubt”: “There I recognize the person who shot my father,” he said at the trial.
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