car bomb A car bomb, bus bomb, van bomb, lorry bomb, or truck bomb, also known as a vehicle-borne improvised explosive device (VBIED), is an improvised explosive device designed to be detonated in an automobile or other vehicles. Car bombs can be roug ...

attack was carried out by the armed

Basque separatist Basque nationalism ( ; ; ) is a form of nationalism that asserts that Basques, an ethnic group indigenous to the western Pyrenees, are a nation and promotes the political unity of the Basques, today scattered between Spain and France. Since i ...

group

ETA Eta ( ; uppercase , lowercase ; ''ē̂ta'' or ''ita'' ) is the seventh letter of the Greek alphabet, representing the close front unrounded vowel, . Originally denoting the voiceless glottal fricative, , in most dialects of Ancient Greek, it ...

Madrid Madrid ( ; ) is the capital and List of largest cities in Spain, most populous municipality of Spain. It has almost 3.5 million inhabitants and a Madrid metropolitan area, metropolitan area population of approximately 7 million. It i ...

Spain Spain, or the Kingdom of Spain, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe with territories in North Africa. Featuring the Punta de Tarifa, southernmost point of continental Europe, it is the largest country in Southern Eur ...

, on 14 July 1986, which killed 12 people and injured another 32. The dead were all members of the Guardia Civil studying in the nearby traffic school on Príncipe de Vergara. The ETA members later convicted of participation in the attack included significant figures in the group, including Antonio Troitiño and Iñaki de Juana Chaos.

Background

The "comando España" of ETA had been responsible for 20 deaths in the previous year, these included an attack in Madrid three months earlier, which had resulted in five deaths, and another the previous month which had killed three people. ETA as a whole had been responsible for 24 deaths in 1986 prior to the attack; 18 of those had occurred in Madrid, leading to claims that the organisation was focusing on the Spanish capital because it believed that attacks there had greater influence on public opinion than attacks in the Basque region. The attack had the highest number of casualties since the

El Descanso bombing On 12 April 1985, the El Descanso restaurant in Madrid, Spain was bombed in a terrorist attack. The explosion caused the three-story building to collapse, crashing down on about 200 diners and employees, killing 18 people, all Spanish citizens, a ...

, by suspected

jihadist Jihadism is a neologism for modern, armed militant Political aspects of Islam, Islamic movements that seek to Islamic state, establish states based on Islamic principles. In a narrower sense, it refers to the belief that armed confrontation ...

s in April 1985, had killed 18 people.

Targets

The police convoy consisted of 70 civil guards, aged between 18 and 25, who had left a traffic school in order to head to Venta de la Rubia, on the outskirts of the Spanish capital, where police engaged in daily practice riding a motorcycle. The convoy consisted of a bus, a minibus and a

Land Rover Land Rover is a brand of predominantly four-wheel drive, off-road capable vehicles, owned by British multinational car manufacturer Jaguar Land Rover (JLR), since 2008 a subsidiary of India's Tata Motors. JLR builds Land Rovers in Brazil ...

and followed the same route at the same time every day, making it easier for ETA to target it.

The attack

The car bomb was loaded with 35 kilos of

Goma-2 Goma-2 was a type of high explosive manufactured for industrial use (chiefly mining) by Unión Española de Explosivos S.A. It was a gelatinous, nitroglycol-based explosive widely used within Spain and exported abroad. It was used by ETA in the ...

explosive An explosive (or explosive material) is a reactive substance that contains a great amount of potential energy that can produce an explosion if released suddenly, usually accompanied by the production of light, heat, sound, and pressure. An ex ...

s and significant quantities of shrapnel and was triggered by remote control by Antonio Troitiño, who had been waiting for the passing of the convoy at a nearby bus stop. One of ETA's most active members, Jose Ignacio de Juana Chaos, was waiting nearby in a vehicle to flee. The explosion threw the bus into the air. Four officers were killed instantly and 32 others were injured, including six civilians. A further four officers were pronounced dead shortly afterward at the nearby La Paz clinic, with a ninth dead announced at 21:30 the same day, and three others dying of their injuries later. Those injured included commuters waiting at a nearby bus stop, while cars and property in the Plaza were also damaged.

Reactions

The Plaza República Dominicana attack occurred three weeks after the

general election A general election is an electoral process to choose most or all members of a governing body at the same time. They are distinct from By-election, by-elections, which fill individual seats that have become vacant between general elections. Gener ...

and one day before the newly elected

parliament In modern politics and history, a parliament is a legislative body of government. Generally, a modern parliament has three functions: Representation (politics), representing the Election#Suffrage, electorate, making laws, and overseeing ...

opened. There was also speculation that the attack was in response to the

French government The Government of France (, ), officially the Government of the French Republic (, ), exercises Executive (government), executive power in France. It is composed of the Prime Minister of France, prime minister, who is the head of government, ...

's decision the previous day to

extradite In an extradition, one jurisdiction delivers a person accused or convicted of committing a crime in another jurisdiction, into the custody of the other's law enforcement. It is a cooperative law enforcement procedure between the two jurisdict ...

José Iturbe, the alleged military leader of ETA, from

Gabon Gabon ( ; ), officially the Gabonese Republic (), is a country on the Atlantic coast of Central Africa, on the equator, bordered by Equatorial Guinea to the northwest, Cameroon to the north, the Republic of the Congo to the east and south, and ...

to face trial, though this theory was challenged by the

Deputy Prime Minister A deputy prime minister or vice prime minister is, in some countries, a Minister (government), government minister who can take the position of acting prime minister when the prime minister is temporarily absent. The position is often likened to th ...

Alfonso Guerra Alfonso Guerra González (born 31 May 1940) is a Spanish politician. A leading member of the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party (PSOE), he served as vice president of the government (''vicepresidente del Gobierno'', i.e. equivalent to deputy pri ...

, who pointed out that such an attack would have required a longer period of planning.

Mayor of Madrid The Mayor of Madrid presides over the Madrid City Council, the government body of the capital city of Spain. The mayor has the duty of boosting the local policies, it directs the action of the other executive bodies, leads the Local Executive Adm ...

Juan Barranco Gallardo Juan Antonio Barranco Gallardo (born 13 August 1947 in Santiago de Calatrava, Jaén Province) is a retired Spanish politician in the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party. He was Mayor of Madrid following the 1986 death of Enrique Tierno Galván, ...

, called for solidarity with the victims and their families and requested a three-minute silence at midday the same day.

Arrests

Antón Troitiño, alias 'Miguel Ángel' and José Ignacio de Juana Chaos were apprehended on 16 January 1987, when anti-

terrorist Terrorism, in its broadest sense, is the use of violence against non-combatants to achieve political or ideological aims. The term is used in this regard primarily to refer to intentional violence during peacetime or in the context of war aga ...

police The police are Law enforcement organization, a constituted body of Law enforcement officer, people empowered by a State (polity), state with the aim of Law enforcement, enforcing the law and protecting the Public order policing, public order ...

mounted an operation against their base of operations, a flat on Río Ulla Street in Madrid. Four other ETA members: Cristina Arrizabalaga, María Teresa Rojo, Esteban Esteban Nieto, Inés del Río Prada and Inmaculada Noble were arrested in the same operation. In 1989, Troitiño was convicted of 22 murders and sentenced to 2,232 years in prison. However he was released from prison on 13 April 2011. Inés del Río Prada received sentences totalling 3,828 years for her participation in this and other attacks. These sentences were to run concurrently, making her eligible for release in 2008. However the new government of

Mariano Rajoy Mariano Rajoy Brey (, ; born 27 March 1955) is a Spanish politician who served as Prime Minister of Spain from 2011 to 2018, when a 2018 vote of no confidence in the government of Mariano Rajoy, vote of no confidence ousted his government. A m ...

changed the laws, making ETA prisoners ineligible for early release on good behaviour grounds. As a result, del Río Prada became ineligible for release until 2017. She challenged this at the

European Court of Human Rights The European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR), also known as the Strasbourg Court, is an international court of the Council of Europe which interprets the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR). The court hears applications alleging that a co ...

and won her case, resulting in her release on 22 October 2013.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Plaza Republica Dominicana bombing 1986 road incidents 1980s in Madrid 1986 murders in Spain 1980s road incidents in Europe 1980s trials 20th-century mass murder in Spain Bus bombings in Europe Bus incidents in Spain Car and truck bombings in Spain ETA (separatist group) actions Improvised explosive device bombings in 1986 Improvised explosive device bombings in Madrid July 1986 in Europe Mass murder in 1986 Mass murder in Madrid Murder trials 1986 disasters in Spain Terrorist incidents in Europe in 1986 Terrorist incidents in Spain in the 1980s Terrorist incidents on buses in Europe Trials in Spain Car and truck bombings in the 1980s