The ETA member Aitor Aguirrebarrena will appear before the National Court on May 24 for the murder of López de Lacalle
The judge of the National Court María Tardón will take a statement on May 24 from former member of the terrorist group ETA Aitor Aguirrebarrena, alias 'Peio', for the murder of EL MUNDO journalist José Luis López de Lacalle, perpetrated on May 7 of the year 2000 in Andoain (Guipúzcoa).
In an order of this same Thursday, the head of the Central Court of Instruction Number 3 agrees to call Aguirrebarrena to the judicial headquarters starting at 10:00 a.m. to receive an investigative statement after the Court of Appeal of Paris authorized on March 22 his delivery.
It should be remembered that the magistrate issued a European arrest and surrender order in January last year so that the judicial authorities of the French country authorized her surrender for the aforementioned facts. Tardón was forced to make that decision after the ETA member accepted the principle of specialty.
The magistrate has already issued an indictment against Peio and against the also former member of ETA Asier Arzalluz, but the French prosecutors did not consider it sufficient, demanding a more coercive measure. That led the Spanish judge to agree to the provisional detention of both, a merely instrumental movement in order to obtain the placet of the French Justice.
Thus, Peio will finally appear before the magistrate on May 24 at 10:00 a.m. by videoconference from prison.. Legal sources have explained that, in addition to the López de Lacalle case, the ETA member has a case pending regarding some explosives located in a juvenile center in Zumárraga.
'Totto Commando'
The accusation against Arzalluz Goñi and Aguirrebarrena was extended as a result of a series of documentary findings and subsequent inquiries that led the Police and Civil Guard to conclude that they were the other members of the Totto Command, the one who attacked López de Lacalle, who had yet to be identified. .
The uniformed officers analyzed the documentation found in 2002 in a house located in Castres (France) where there was a warehouse for ETA logistics material. Specifically, as detailed in the records, manuscripts in Basque were located, the so-called kantadas, which “show the possible existence of rational evidence of criminality” against both.
For this crime, José Ignacio Guridi Lasa, as the perpetrator, and Francisco Javier García Gaztelu, 'Txapote', as the person who organized and ordered the murder of the journalist, who died after being shot several times in the middle of the street when he was returning home after buy the newspaper at a nearby kiosk.
According to the court report, Txapote, as “the head of the terrorist organization's military apparatus,” captured Guridi Lasa in 1999, commissioning him to form an “armed legal command.”. In turn, the latter contacted Santi and Peio and they formed the Ttotto command. “They received various courses in France on handling weapons and explosives” and their first mission was to kill López de Lacalle by Airecta order from García Gaztelu.
The records indicate that Guridi Lasa, Santi and Peio watched him for a week in order to establish a pattern of entries and exits that was not followed on May 7.. When they waited for him to leave home they saw him come back. Then, the first one approached to verify that it was López de Lacalle and fired four shots at him while the other two watched.. Then the three fled together in a car.