Enrique Rodríguez Galindo (5 February 1939 – 13 February 2021) was a Spanish
brigadier general
Brigadier general or Brigade general is a military rank used in many countries. It is the lowest ranking general officer in some countries. The rank is usually above a colonel, and below a major general or divisional general. When appointed ...
of the Civil Guard, who was sentenced to 71 years in prison in 2000 for the kidnapping and murder of the alleged
ETA
Eta (uppercase , lowercase ; grc, ἦτα ''ē̂ta'' or ell, ήτα ''ita'' ) is the seventh letter of the Greek alphabet, representing the close front unrounded vowel . Originally denoting the voiceless glottal fricative in most dialects, ...
Enrique Rodriguez Galindo was born on 5 February 1939 in
Granada
Granada (,, DIN 31635, DIN: ; grc, Ἐλιβύργη, Elibýrgē; la, Illiberis or . ) is the capital city of the province of Granada, in the autonomous communities of Spain, autonomous community of Andalusia, Spain. Granada is located at the fo ...
, Andalusia, Spain, to a non-commissioned officer in the Civil Guard. In 1958, he entered the Military Academy of the Civil Guard of
Úbeda
Úbeda (; from Iberian ''Ibiut'') is a town in the province of Jaén in Spain's autonomous community of Andalusia, with 34,733 (data 2017) inhabitants. Both this city and the neighbouring city of Baeza benefited from extensive patronage in the ...
, Province of Jaén. After graduating second in his cohort, he joined the
General Military Academy
The General Military Academy (in Spanish: Academia General Militar) is a higher training center of the Spanish Army, responsible for the initial training for officers of the Arms and Corps of the Army, and for the officers of the Civil Guard. I ...
in
Zaragoza
Zaragoza, also known in English as Saragossa,''Encyclopædia Britannica'"Zaragoza (conventional Saragossa)" is the capital city of the Zaragoza Province and of the autonomous community of Aragon, Spain. It lies by the Ebro river and its tributari ...
, where he graduated as a lieutenant in 1965.
Upon graduation, Galindo went through various assignments at various localities, first at Cantavieja, then at the former Spanish colony of
Equatorial Guinea
Equatorial Guinea ( es, Guinea Ecuatorial; french: Guinée équatoriale; pt, Guiné Equatorial), officially the Republic of Equatorial Guinea ( es, link=no, República de Guinea Ecuatorial, french: link=no, République de Guinée équatoria ...
. Subsequently, he was assigned to the now defunct Traffic Subsector of Guipúzcoa, in
San Sebastián
San Sebastian, officially known as Donostia–San Sebastián (names in both local languages: ''Donostia'' () and ''San Sebastián'' ()) is a city and Municipalities of Spain, municipality located in the Basque Country (autonomous community), B ...
.
On 25 May 1980, after having obtained the job of commander, he was required to find out if he was a volunteer to fill a vacancy in the San Sebastián Command – Intxaurrondo Barracks, then in full growth and expansion.
After the departure of the various chiefs and second chiefs of the command, he was assuming the competences and sometimes carrying out the accidental or interim leadership of the Intxaurrondo Command, enhancing the work of the Information Service, beginning to achieve results – detention of different commands legal and released, both from the Autonomous Anticapitalist Commandos, as well as from ETA political-military and ETA. During that time, he participated in the arrest of Jesús María Zabarte, and José Antonio López Ruiz alias Kubati, both operations, thanks to the information obtained through the surveillance of the targets.
From this time until his promotion to general in 1995, highlights the arrest on 29 March 1992 of the leadership of ETA in the French town of
Atlantic Pyrenees
The Atlantic Ocean is the second-largest of the world's five oceans, with an area of about . It covers approximately 20% of Earth's surface and about 29% of its water surface area. It is known to separate the " Old World" of Africa, Europe an ...
, known colloquially as «Collective Artapalo ».
The government promoted Galindo to
brigadier general
Brigadier general or Brigade general is a military rank used in many countries. It is the lowest ranking general officer in some countries. The rank is usually above a colonel, and below a major general or divisional general. When appointed ...
on 4 August 1995.
He was also the architect and the person who mediated negotiations for different peace talks that the different socialist governments of the 1980s held with the ETA leadership. First through mediators in the Basque Country and later in direct conversations with Domingo Iturbe Abasolo, alias Txomin, in the mid-1980s, in
Andorra
, image_flag = Flag of Andorra.svg
, image_coat = Coat of arms of Andorra.svg
, symbol_type = Coat of arms
, national_motto = la, Virtus Unita Fortior, label=none (Latin)"United virtue is stro ...
.
In 2006 he presented a book in which he reviews his entire biography, entitled '' My life against ETA ''.
Legal prosecution
Member of the paramilitary organization GAL
On 20 March 1995, the remains of two people were discovered in the municipality of
Busot
Busot (, ) is a municipality in the ''comarca'' of Alacantí in the Valencian Community
The Valencian Community ( ca-valencia, Comunitat Valenciana, es, Comunidad Valenciana) is an autonomous community of Spain. It is the fourth most populo ...
,
province of Alicante
Alicante ( ca-valencia, Alacant) is a province of eastern Spain, in the southern part of the Valencian Community. It is the second most populated Valencian province. Likewise, the second and third biggest cities in the Valencian Community (Alica ...
. Chief Inspector Jesús García García identified them as José Ignacio Zabala and José Antonio Lasa, ETA members who had disappeared in
Bayonne
Bayonne (; eu, Baiona ; oc, label= Gascon, Baiona ; es, Bayona) is a city in Southwestern France near the Spanish border. It is a commune and one of two subprefectures in the Pyrénées-Atlantiques department, in the Nouvelle-Aquitaine re ...
, France. Being covered with
quicklime
Calcium oxide (CaO), commonly known as quicklime or burnt lime, is a widely used chemical compound. It is a white, caustic, alkaline, crystalline solid at room temperature. The broadly used term "''lime''" connotes calcium-containing inorganic ma ...
, he sensed that they could be victims of the GAL. The judicial procedure was opened by the National Audience. After the statements of several witnesses, Rodríguez Galindo was charged by the Audience of belonging to an armed gang on 19 March 1998, for ordering the kidnapping and death of the ETA members. He was in preventive detention between 22 May and 2 August 1996, due to well-founded suspicions of his possible criminal responsibility, and again between September 1997 and June 1998. He testified in court as a defendant on 16 December 1999.
On 26 April 2000, he was sentenced to 71 years in prison for the 1983 kidnapping and murder of José Antonio Lasa and José Ignacio Zabala. The former civil governor of Guipúzcoa Julen Elgorriaga, Lieutenant Colonel Ángel Vaquero – at that time captain and head of the Information Service in the Intxaurrondo Command – and former civil guards Enrique Dorado and Felipe Bayo were also convicted of the same crimes. On 17 October of that year, Lasa and Zabala were kidnapped in Bayonne, France, by members of the GAL. They were held at the Intxaurrondo Civil Guard barracks. Following General Galindo's instructions, they were taken to the La Cumbre palace in San Sebastián, where they were tortured. In view of the state in which they remained, General Galindo, with the knowledge of the civil governor Julen Elgorriaga and Lieutenant Colonel Ángel Vaquero, ordered their disappearance. The civil guards Enrique Dorado and Felipe Bayo took them to Busot, Alicante, dug a grave, and the first fired three shots in the head. Then they were buried. Their remains were found in January 1985, but they remained unidentified until 1995, as their bodies had been buried in quicklime, which made their identification difficult.
Rodríguez Galindo was jailed on 9 May 2000 in the military prison of
Alcalá de Henares
Alcalá de Henares () is a Spanish city in the Community of Madrid. Straddling the Henares River, it is located to the northeast of the centre of Madrid. , it has a population of 193,751, making it the region's third-most populated Municipalities ...
. Due to his loss of military status, on 14 July 2003, he was admitted to the Ocaña II prison. During his time in prison, his family submitted a petition for clemency accompanied by 100,000 signatures. The Supreme Court Prosecutor's Office opposed this pardon and the Court ruled against.
In July 2001 the
Supreme Court
A supreme court is the highest court within the hierarchy of courts in most legal jurisdictions. Other descriptions for such courts include court of last resort, apex court, and high (or final) court of appeal. Broadly speaking, the decisions of ...
increased these sentences, considering their condition as public officials as aggravating, and in July 2002 the
Constitutional Court
A constitutional court is a high court that deals primarily with constitutional law. Its main authority is to rule on whether laws that are challenged are in fact unconstitutional, i.e. whether they conflict with constitutionally established ...
refused to grant an appeal for protection ("recurso de amparo") to those convicted.
On 2 April 2002, the Ministry of Defense decreed Rodríguez Galindo's discharge from the Civil Guard after his conviction.
His appeal to the
European Court of Human Rights
The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR or ECtHR), also known as the Strasbourg Court, is an international court of the Council of Europe which interprets the European Convention on Human Rights. The court hears applications alleging that a ...
in Strasbourg was dismissed in 2010; the Court declared that the
European Convention on Human Rights
The European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR; formally the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms) is an international convention to protect human rights and political freedoms in Europe. Drafted in 1950 by t ...
had not been violated during the trial.
He was granted a semi-release prison regime in 2005 and definitive parole in 2013.
After serving five years of his sentence, in 2004, the General Directorate of Penitentiary Institutions ordered Galindo's release from prison for serious health reasons, remaining on probation until his death in 2021.
Drug trafficking and trafficking in women
During his career, he was accused by different media — ''
Diario 16
''Diario 16'' (Spanish for "Daily 16" or "Newspaper 16") was a Spanish-language daily newspaper published in Madrid, Spain, between 1976 and 2001. The ''16'' of the title refers to the sixteen founders of Grupo 16, publishers of the weekly news m ...
'', ''
Egin
Egin may refer to:
* ''Egin'' (newspaper), a defunct bilingual Basque-Spanish newspaper
* Eğin, the name for the town of Kemaliye, Turkey, until about 1923
* Egin, Idaho, United States, an unincorporated community
* Yuri Egin, an anime-only cha ...
'' and '' Egunkaria'' — of being linked to drug trafficking networks and trafficking in women.
He was denounced but the case was closed by the San Sebastián Investigating Court, which considered that the accusations were "simple rumors that have not been proven". Galindo denounced the ''Diario 16'' and ''Egin'' newspapers for publishing these news, but lost the respective trials in 1999 and 2000, both by the Supreme Court. He also denounced the Basque group
Negu Gorriak
Negu Gorriak (Basque for ''"Red Winters"'' or ''"Severe/Harsh Winters"'') were an underground Spanish group from the Basque Autonomous Community. Their musical style combines various styles of rock music such as hardcore punk, hip-hop, ska, and re ...
for the lyrics of the song ''Ustelkeria'' ("Rottenness"), in which the group echoed the news published in Egunkaria, although the Civil Guard ended up losing the lawsuit on 9 June 2000.
Tortures
The filmmaker Ion Arretxe accused him in ''El País'' of having twisted his testicles when he was detained in 1985 with Mikel Zabalza at the Intxaurrondo barracks: "They took me to a river, they put two plastic bags on me that they closed with electrical tape and for hours they submerged me in the water. They transferred me unconscious to the Intxaurrondo barracks and for three days they tortured me in various ways. I was naked, with a hood covering my head, in an empty apartment where they wouldn't let me sleep and they kept beating me. Galindo even appeared, who took off my hood, asked me if I knew him, to say what he knew and he twisted my testicles"''.
Death
On 2 February 2021 it was reported that Rodríguez Galindo was in ICU with a serious condition affected by
COVID-19
Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a contagious disease caused by a virus, the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The first known case was COVID-19 pandemic in Hubei, identified in Wuhan, China, in December ...
and his wife was also infected. He died on 13 February 2021, in
Zaragoza
Zaragoza, also known in English as Saragossa,''Encyclopædia Britannica'"Zaragoza (conventional Saragossa)" is the capital city of the Zaragoza Province and of the autonomous community of Aragon, Spain. It lies by the Ebro river and its tributari ...
eight days after his 82nd birthday amid the
COVID-19 pandemic in Spain
The COVID-19 pandemic in Spain has resulted in confirmed cases of COVID-19 and deaths.
The virus was first confirmed to have spread to Spain on 31 January 2020, when a German tourist tested positive for SARS-CoV-2 in La Gomera, Canary Island ...