The Police point to four former ETA chiefs for setting Miguel Ángel Blanco as a "priority objective" of the band

He considers that they could "have prevented his murder", but they decided not to give "the order" to release him

MADRID, 16 Mar. (EUROPA PRESS) -

The National Police has pointed to the former heads of the terrorist organization ETA Ignacio Miguel Gracia Arregui, alias 'Iñaki de Rentería'; José Javier Arizcuren, 'Kantauri'; María Soledad Iparraguirre, 'Anboto' and Mikel Albisu Iriarte, 'Mikel Antza', as those responsible for setting the former Popular Party councilor in Ermua Miguel Ángel Blanco as a "priority objective" of the band.

This is clear from a 160-page report, to which Europa Press has had access, which the investigators have sent to the National Court judge investigating the ETA leadership for their alleged participation in the kidnapping and subsequent murder of Blanco, who It was produced in 1997.

The agents explain that, as members of the Executive Committee of the band, "they had the capacity to decide the concrete execution of a terrorist action". "What's more, in the case of attempting to attack special objectives, the ETA leadership had to give its authorization. Regarding the assassination of PP politicians/councillors, there was an express order to a generality of commandos, including Donosti, which was directly responsible in the specific case of Miguel Ángel Blanco", they point out.

In this context, the Police assure that the four former ETA chiefs they are targeting "did not give the order to release" the "popular" leader "when they were fully aware of their position of command and having full control about the actions of his armed commandos, which could have prevented his assassination".

Thus, they indicate that the Executive Committee, through the military apparatus -of which 'Iñaki de Rentería', 'Kantauri' and 'Anboto' were part_"ordered its commandos to have as a priority objective attacking political representatives, especially of the PP, as demonstrated by documentary and testimonial evidence related to several of the commandos that acted in national territory".

"Miguel Ángel Blanco became the target of the ETA organization in its entirety, and not only of the Donosti command, for being a member of the Popular Party for the achievement, under political blackmail and the threat of death, of the destabilization of the State," they insist. the researchers.

Along these lines, the Police emphasize the importance of the hierarchy within the gang. "The Executive Committee functioned in a collegiate manner, and strategic and sometimes operational and tactical decisions were adopted by unanimous agreement of all its members," he explains, adding that this function "included not only the determination of the strategic political line and military".

The gang's leadership, the report continues, was also in charge of the "design, planning, coordination, direction and sometimes also the order or authorization to carry out the terrorist attacks that were materialized by the operational commands."

The members of the Executive Committee, among which are the four ex-chiefs indicated, "corresponded at least with the main managers of said structures in an inconstant number, also sometimes adding another militant, either because they maintained an ascendancy over a certain substructure important, or because of his outstanding record of militancy".

As leaders of these apparatuses, they were in charge, the Police points out, "of providing the necessary personal and material means to the operational armed commandos for the commission of the attacks."

"ETA was a highly structured and hierarchical organization in which its members had an entrusted task and a person in charge to whom they were accountable for that performance, this person in charge transmitted them the orders emanating from another superior person or directly from the governing body," the report concludes. .

The gang's structure, moreover, "was very closed and almost military in nature." "Each member of ETA depended on a person in charge and that of another superior, in a pyramidal chain. All the militants knew of the existence of the Executive Committee. The orders of each person in charge were obeyed in the conviction that it was not a personal order, rather, it responded to a plan drawn up by the head of the organization, that board of directors that was the Executive Committee," the researchers maintain.

In the terrorist organization, they continue, "there was an iron discipline through which they tried to avoid betrayals, desertions, denunciations, lack of observance of the security measures imposed or critical positions." "On some occasion the decision was the execution of the militant," they reveal.

Thus, the Police assert that "the disciplinary regime did not have some lines of definition of the specific punishable acts or their consequences, which resulted in a rather arbitrary application of discipline."

The ETA leadership "exercised total control over the acts of its militants; where, how, when and with whom they would carry out their functions or live, affecting all members of the organization, including prisoners, those who fled to third countries and , of course, those who were active". "It even regulated more personal issues," they add.

But, in addition, the Executive Committee was not only the one that provided "the necessary instruments so that the terrorist cells could carry out the armed actions, but these, as a mere operational tool", did so "following the strategy and objectives set by the governing body".

These are the conclusions of the report that the Police have sent to the head of the Central Court of Instruction Number 6, Manuel García Castellón, one year after he agreed to reopen the investigation into the murder of Blanco after admitting a complaint filed by the police for processing. Dignity and Justice Association.

It should be remembered that, in the case of the murder of Blanco, the First Criminal Section of the National Court already sentenced in 2006 to 50 years in prison the former ETA leader Francisco Javier García Gaztelu, 'Txapote', and his sentimental partner and member of ETA Irantzu Gallastegui Sodupe, 'Amaia', as material authors.