The Monbar Hotel attack was carried out by the Grupos Antiterroristas de Liberación (GAL), a Spanish state-sponsored death squad, on 25 September 1985 in Bayonne, Pyrénées-Atlantiques, France. The targets were four members of the Basque separatist terrorist group Euskadi Ta Askatasuna (ETA), whom the Spanish government believed to be senior figures in the organization, itself proscribed as a terrorist group in Spain and France. All four people were killed, with a fifth person, apparently unconnected to ETA, injured in the shooting. This represented the deadliest attack carried out by the GAL. Although two of the participants were apprehended shortly after the shooting, controversy surrounded the possible involvement of senior figures in the Spanish police.
This attack, and similar attacks carried out by the GAL, became a major issue during the 1996 Spanish general election after a supreme court trial established that the Spanish Interior Ministry had provided clandestine funding for the GAL. Spanish Interior Minister José Barrionuevo and his security chief, Rafael Vera, were jailed for ten years for sanctioning a kidnapping and misappropriation of public funds to finance the group, and the GAL scandal is seen as a key factor in the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party (PSOE) losing the election, though more senior figures in the PSOE, such as Felipe Gonzalez, denied knowledge and involvement.
Background
The French Basque Country had been a haven of Euskadi Ta Askatasuna (ETA), an armed Basque separatist group, for decades. Since mid-1968, most of ETA's leadership had lived there and used it as a base for training, infrastructure and planning attacks. ETA commandos also operated from there, crossing the border into Spain to carry out attacks before fleeing back to France. This led to complaints in Spain that French authorities were not doing enough to tackle ETA activity, preferring to leave the Basque conflict to the Spanish to deal with.
As one of the larger cities in the French Basque Country, Bayonne had been one of the main bases of ETA. From 1975 onwards, this had prompted a reaction from anti-ETA groups. In April 1975, a Basque bookshop in Bayonne was bombed, though no one was injured. On 25 June 1979, Enrique Gómez Álvarez, an alleged ETA member, was killed by the Batallón Vasco Español (BVE), a right-wing paramilitary group active since 1975.
The BVE vanished after 1981 but, from 1983 onwards, the Grupos Antiterroristas de Liberación (GAL) began carrying out similar attacks and abductions. The first in Bayonne occurred on 17 October 1983, when alleged ETA members Joxe Lasa Arostegi and José Ignacio Zabala disappeared. Their mutilated bodies were found in Alicante in 1985. An unsuccessful kidnapping attempt occurred the following day and, in December, Ramón Oñaederra, an alleged ETA member, and Mikel Goikoetxea, an alleged ETA leader, were assassinated by the GAL in separate incidents. Prior to the Monbar attack, two people had been killed and six injured in three attacks in Bayonne in 1985.
The targets
The targets of the attack were four members of ETA. According to the Spanish authorities, they had a long history within the organization.
Ignacio Asteazunzarra (Beltza) had been arrested in 1973 in Loyola, but had been freed by other ETA militants at gunpoint. He was believed to have been part of a cell which had been particularly active in 1979 in attacks in the province of Álava. He had been granted refugee status by French authorities in 1984. José María Etxaniz (Potros) had begun activity in 1973. He had been arrested by Spanish police in 1975, along with twenty-one others, in connection with a large haul of guns and explosives discovered. Etxaniz had been arrested again by French police in 1984. He was the leader of ETA military in the Vitoria area, according to Spanish police sources. Agustin Irazustabarrena (Legra) belonged to the Sega cell of ETA military, according to Spanish police. He fled to France in 1982 and in 1984 he had been arrested by French police charged with possession of illegal weapons. Irazustabarrena's trial had still been pending at the time of his death. He was believed to be in charge of cross-border operations for ETA. José Sabino Etxaide had belonged to an information gathering cell of ETA. He had fled to France in 1982.
