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The Government apologizes for the deaths in 1981 in Almería after the Civil Guard confused them with terrorists

The families ask for reparation through the new Memory Law and the director of the Civil Guard admits that what happened was unjustifiable.

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The Government apologizes for the deaths in 1981 in Almería after the Civil Guard confused them with terrorists

The families ask for reparation through the new Memory Law and the director of the Civil Guard admits that what happened was unjustifiable

ALMERÍA, 20 Jan. (EUROPA PRESS) -

The Secretary of State for Democratic Memory, Fernando Martínez, has apologized "from the heart of the State" to the relatives of Juan Mañas, Luis Cobo and Luis Montero, the three young men who were arrested by the Civil Guard on May 10, 1981 when they were traveling by car to attend a communion with a family member, allegedly being mistaken for members of a terrorist command.

The mother and brothers of Juan Mañas and a nephew, Luis Montero, have attended an event held at the Almería Government Sub-delegation that has been attended by the General Director of the Civil Guard, María Gámez, who has indicated that " those terrible events in Almería should never have occurred" and in which "there is no justification".

The bodies of the three citizens appeared burned the following day inside the vehicle in a place in Gérgal (Almería) after having been tortured.

At the ceremony, the three families were presented with reparation diplomas by the Secretary of State for Democratic Memory and by the General Director of the Civil Guard.

During the event, in which several pieces of music were performed by a string quartet and poems were read, Martínez stressed the Government's "forgiveness" to the families of the victims, also for "the unjustified abandonment of decades " who have suffered at the institutional level.

"We are aware of the extraordinary suffering you have gone through and we know that this act is late," he said before assuring that they will not be "alone" again.

Juan Mañas' little brother, Francisco Javier Mañas -whose communion led the three young people to travel from Santander-, stated during his speech on behalf of the families that the event, "although too late", was very expected. "It represents a relief to our prolonged and unfairly silenced suffering," he said.

"The Government of Spain is with us, along with so many friends who are with us today giving us warmth and affection", Mañas added. However, he recalled that, although nearly 42 years have passed since the "terrible crime", the pain "does not prescribe", especially when the life of his brother and his friends was taken from them "in the hands of those who have our obligation custody and guarantee our rights". "Great paradox, tremendous injustice," he added.

"Three families have survived in that pain, with that unbearable slab, that misunderstanding, that irreparable loss and all those years of suffering, without anyone from the administration ever giving us an explanation, saying I'm sorry, or saying there shouldn't have been. the unjustifiable happened", he stated to express the situation experienced by the families.

Thus, he has focused on the suffering that María Morales, his 86-year-old mother, has experienced, the only one who is still alive and to whom the audience has given a prolonged ovation. "She has been waiting for more than four decades, even if they are only a few words of apology, and today is that day," she said in relation to her mother, who has been visibly emotional throughout her recognition. .

The tribute has recounted a memory of the lawyer Darío Fernández, who "almost cost his life to defend the victims of the Almería Case" and who died in August 2021, and of whom the representative of the families has recalled that, due to his work, a trial could be held, which "was not fair at all"; an aspect in which the Secretary of State for Democratic Memory has agreed.

Thus, Mañas has asked that neither the events nor the places where they occurred be forgotten, such as the old Casasfuertes castle, where the Civil Guard had its headquarters and the interrogations were carried out, or the Gérgal road, a place where the bodies appeared totally charred.

"We are not going to stop, today we receive a new impulse from the Government of Spain to continue working to find the truth of the Almería Case and also so that Juan Mañas, Luis Montero and Luis Cobo are given the treatment they deserve in the recent Law of Democratic Memory", pointed out the family spokesman, who expressed his gratitude to the Andalusian Association of Victims of the Transition, the Collective of Forgotten of the Transition and the 'Dismembered of Santander' Association, which promoted institutional recognition in Parliament of Cantabria in 2018.

In relation to this work, the Secretary of State for Democratic Memory pointed out during his speech that the law approved at the end of 2022 is "ambitious" in terms of its purposes, highlighting the sixteenth additional provision that "proposes and establishes a technical commission to a study on the violation of human rights in the Transition between 1978 and December 31, 1983, indicating possible ways of recognition and reparation".

Thus, it has affected that the situation of the victims and relatives of the 'Almería Case' will be the object of study by this commission. "As from Almeria, the murder of your relatives hurt me especially" and showed "the most terrible face of the Franco dictatorship", he told them in one of the first acts that are carried out after the approval of the law with the institutional presence of the Civil Guard.

During the recognition, in which thanks were also expressed to the Almeria journalists of the time who made the facts known, the director of the Civil Guard expressed the "moral duty" that as a representative of the Armed Institute her presence in the act, which has been offered as a "sign of democratic quality" to preserve the "memory and dignity" of the victims.

"There is no room for violation of rights in their actions, only their defense," he pointed out regarding the role of the women and men of the Civil Guard in the face of events that he described as "horror" and "shame." "There is no justification of any kind," said Gámez, who is confident that this recognition has given "consolation to the families."

For his part, the Government delegate in Andalusia, Pedro Fernández, has considered that the act "gives honor to the memory of the victims" while paying off a "debt" of the country with them, since, as he has expressed, they deserved a " repair" to his memory.