On 15 January 1978, a fire in

Barcelona Barcelona ( ; ; ) is a city on the northeastern coast of Spain. It is the capital and largest city of the autonomous community of Catalonia, as well as the second-most populous municipality of Spain. With a population of 1.6 million within c ...

's Scala nightclub killed four people. The ensuing

trial In law, a trial is a coming together of parties to a dispute, to present information (in the form of evidence) in a tribunal, a formal setting with the authority to adjudicate claims or disputes. One form of tribunal is a court. The tribunal, w ...

became known as the Scala case. Initially, some of the protestors were condemned to prison sentences, but after some years, it was revealed that the cause of the incident were the actions of an infiltrated police officer, who was finally condemned.

The incident

In the morning of Sunday 15 January 1978, a demonstration organized by the

anarcho-syndicalist Anarcho-syndicalism is an anarchist organisational model that centres trade unions as a vehicle for class conflict. Drawing from the theory of libertarian socialism and the practice of syndicalism, anarcho-syndicalism sees trade unions as both ...

trade union A trade union (British English) or labor union (American English), often simply referred to as a union, is an organization of workers whose purpose is to maintain or improve the conditions of their employment, such as attaining better wages ...

Confederación Nacional del Trabajo The (CNT; ) is a Spanish anarcho-syndicalist national trade union center, trade union confederation. Founded in 1910 in Barcelona from groups brought together by the trade union ''Solidaridad Obrera (historical union), Solidaridad Obrera'', ...

'' (CNT) took place in Barcelona. The protest was held to demonstrate against the Moncloa Pacts, which CNT considered to be harmful to the

working class The working class is a subset of employees who are compensated with wage or salary-based contracts, whose exact membership varies from definition to definition. Members of the working class rely primarily upon earnings from wage labour. Most c ...

. Around 15,000 people participated in the protest. At around 13:15, after the protest had ended and the protestors were dispersing, a group of young adults instigated by an agent provocateur named Joaquín Gambín threw molotov coctails at the stone facade of the Scala nightclub. According to the police, this was the cause of the fire that destroyed the building and killed four workers – Ramón Egea, Juan López, Diego Montoro and Bernabé Bravo –, three of which were paradoxically affiliated with CNT, that happened to be in the club at that time. Different speculations were made by the press about the causes and the perpetrators of the crime. Some attributed the crime to common murderers, others speculated that its cause was related with affairs regarding the business of the club and others implicated relationships of the perpetrators with the campaign in favor of the

freedom of expression Freedom of speech is a principle that supports the freedom of an individual or a community to articulate their opinions and ideas without fear of retaliation, censorship, or legal sanction. The rights, right to freedom of expression has been r ...

of the actor and director Albert Boadella (who was at the time brought to a

court-martial A court-martial (plural ''courts-martial'' or ''courts martial'', as "martial" is a postpositive adjective) is a military court or a trial conducted in such a court. A court-martial is empowered to determine the guilt of members of the arme ...

for allegedly offending the army with one of his works). Finally on Tuesday 17 January, the police informed the press about the arrest of some suspects, who were members of the

anarchist Anarchism is a political philosophy and Political movement, movement that seeks to abolish all institutions that perpetuate authority, coercion, or Social hierarchy, hierarchy, primarily targeting the state (polity), state and capitalism. A ...

trade union CNT. The newspaper of the French CNT, stated that the ignition was the result of the actions of agents provocateurs that had infiltrated the protest before the incident. It is believed that flammable or incendiary materials were placed inside the club before the manifestation, since it is very improbable that simple molotov cocktails thrown at the stone facade of the building could result in the burning of the whole building except, paradoxically, the facade. Additionally, the inform of the firefighters indicated that the fire started in another place of the club and probably originated from a flammable material of military origin.

The trial

The trial of Scala case took place in December 1980. Some days before the start of the trial a key witness had died. The

lawyer A lawyer is a person who is qualified to offer advice about the law, draft legal documents, or represent individuals in legal matters. The exact nature of a lawyer's work varies depending on the legal jurisdiction and the legal system, as w ...

s of the defense requested that the first deputy prime minister

Rodolfo Martín Villa Rodolfo Martín Villa (born 3 October 1934) is a Spanish engineer and politician, who served in various capacities in the cabinets of the Spanish transition to democracy, including interior minister and first deputy prime minister. He was under ...

appeared to testify, but he did not. The position of the defense was that the police orchestrated the incident with the use of agents provocateurs to reduce CNT's popularity among the workers and to stop its growth in

Catalonia Catalonia is an autonomous community of Spain, designated as a ''nationalities and regions of Spain, nationality'' by its Statute of Autonomy of Catalonia of 2006, Statute of Autonomy. Most of its territory (except the Val d'Aran) is situate ...

. José Cuevas, Xavier Cañadas and Arturo Palma were sentenced to 17 years in prison as the perpetrators of

involuntary homicide Manslaughter is a common law legal term for homicide considered by law as less culpable than murder. The distinction between murder and manslaughter is sometimes said to have first been made by the ancient Athenian lawmaker Draco in the 7th ce ...

and for fabricating explosives. Luis Muñoz was sentenced to 2 years and 6 months in prison for collaboration in the crime and Rosa López was sentenced to 5 months in prison for concealment. After some years, a confidential paper of the police that assigned to Joaquín Gambín the task of infiltrating the protestors, was discovered. He was the one who infiltrated CNT to cause the incident. The pressure from the press on the police combined with Gambín's absence from the trial caused suspicions about the role of the police in the incident and the true perpetrators of the crime. Finally, in the end of 1981 Gambín was arrested in

Valencia Valencia ( , ), formally València (), is the capital of the Province of Valencia, province and Autonomous communities of Spain, autonomous community of Valencian Community, the same name in Spain. It is located on the banks of the Turia (r ...

after a shoot-out with the police. The Scala case would reopen. The second trial for the Scala case, in December 1983, had only one accused: Joaquín Gambín. He was condemned to 7 years in prison for assisting at a demonstration with arms and for constructing explosives. Since then, CNT has always presented this as an insidious maneuver by the government to stop the growth of the anarchist union by the negative publicity that the union had received during the previous years, before the restoration of

justice In its broadest sense, justice is the idea that individuals should be treated fairly. According to the ''Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy'', the most plausible candidate for a core definition comes from the ''Institutes (Justinian), Inst ...

The incident

The trial

See also

References

Further reading