The former military chief of ETA faces 32 years in prison for an attack with minor injuries on Bilbao’s Gran Vía in 2002 and ETA member Gorka Martínez now tells the court that “he does not remember” that he was housed in a safe house
Garikoitz Aspiazu Rubina, alias ‘Txeroki’, former head of the ETA military apparatus arrested in France in November 2008, declared this Tuesday as a defendant in the trial that is being held in the National High Court on a car-bomb attack that occurred in the Great Vía de Bilbao on January 12, 2002, which caused minor injuries and material damage of more than one million euros.
‘Txeroki’, who is facing 32 years in prison for these events, has used his word only to deny his participation in the attack. “I did not participate in this action and I do not know anything about it”, he has responded in Basque to the only question from his defense attorney, the only part that he has wanted to answer. At the end of the first session of the trial, which will resume tomorrow, the defense has transmitted to the journalists that it awaits the acquittal of its client.
The oral hearing is held after France handed him over in August to be tried for this attack and to appear for other causes related to the terrorist group. In the case of the Bilbao car bomb, the Prosecutor’s Office considers him to be the author of the crimes of terrorist havoc, robbery and theft of a vehicle with intimidation and terrorist purposes, and illegal detention for the same purposes.
The prosecutor states in the document that the car bomb exploded around 1:45 p.m. on January 12, 2002, slightly injuring some people and causing “multiple” material damage to homes, vehicles and surrounding establishments. ETA claimed responsibility for the attack on April 4 of that same year.
The authorship is attributed to the ‘K-Olaia command’, of which ‘Txeroki’ was then a member. They placed 30 kilos of dynamite-type explosive and a timer activation system, with an arming lock and two electric detonators in parallel.
As a witness, the ETA member Gorka Martínez appeared on Tuesday, admitting having made a flat available to the terrorist group, but has indicated that he does not remember if he ever gave shelter to that command and in particular to ‘Txeroki’, from 49 years.
“It is possible that he would have passed by the house, but I don’t remember it,” said Martínez, before pointing out that he met Aspiazu Rubina when they both coincided in prison, “but not before.” “My collaboration with ETA was basically reduced to providing a home and a garage and for security reasons the organization always made it very clear to me that the less I knew, the better,” the witness recounted.
By videoconference, Martínez has expressed that if in a police statement he admitted that ‘Txeroki’ and his fellow commandos were on the floor, it was because they subjected him “to torture.”
Two hours tied to a tree
The car bomb had been stolen, an hour before it exploded, from a person, to whom “two men” appeared “in the name of ETA”, threatened him with a pistol and forced him to get into the back , they put a hood on him and tied his wrists with ropes, telling him to collaborate with them, according to the account of the Public Prosecutor’s Office.
Minutes before the explosion, ETA informed the ‘SOS Deiak’ Emergency Coordination Center and the Ertzaintza of the place where the car bomb was located: on Gran Vía street in Bilbao, near the Bank of Spain. After receiving the notice, the Ertzaintza and the Local Police cordoned off the area and removed the “many people” that were there at that time to “avoid greater evils,” according to an ertzaina in the trial.
Minutes later, and when they had driven only a few meters, they lowered the hostage from the vehicle and tied him to a tree, “remaining like that for a period of approximately two hours, until he was freed by several Ertzaintza agents, 3:15 p.m., approximately, ”is noted in the tax document.
As civil liability, the Public Ministry asks the court to sentence the ETA leader to compensate those injured by these events at 1.5 million euros for damage to real estate, plus another 111,369 euros for damage to movable property.
Aspiazu Rubina, alias ‘Arrano’ and ‘Txeroki’, was born in Bilbao 49 years ago and joined ETA in 2000, as a collaborator of the ‘Ituren command’. He would later join the ‘Vizcaya command’, to which several attacks committed between 2001 and 2003 are attributed. From 2003 until his arrest in 2008 he was the organization’s military chief.
‘Txeroki’ was arrested in Cauterets (in the French Pyrenees) on November 17, 2008 in an operation against the leadership of the terrorist group. During his leadership of the commandos he had a direct confrontation with the then ‘number one’ of the band, the late Javier López Peña, alias ‘Thierry’. Despite having already been tried and sentenced in France, where he is in prison, Aspiazu Rubina has also been investigated for numerous cases in Spain and is awaiting new trials.
#Txeroki #distances #car #bomb #Bilbao #witness #supports #version