They denounce to the Justice Department the death under torture of the gudari Txomin Letamendi in 1950

After filing the complaint Josu Múgica Ayestaran last July, Euskal Herriko Giza Eskubideen Behatokia (GEBehatokia) reported this Friday its initiative to file a second complaint. In this case it is the emblematic case of Txomin Letamendi Muruaan EAJ-PNV activist, against whom the family has filed a complaint with the Donostia court for crimes against humanity. In particular “because of the severe physical and mental torture that the Franco police inflicted on him, as well as the painful prison conditions that led to his death,” they explained.

The complaint is filed on the eve of today, exactly: 74 years since his death. Txomin Letamendi Murua was born in Bilbao in 1901, it was the city where he developed his career as a musician in various bands and in the Bilbao Symphony Orchestra.

During the civil war he was commander of Gudaris and after the fall of the capital of Biscay he had to do the same exile to Paris where he worked with the Basque tion Services under the command of Lehendakari José Antonio Aguirre.

There he met Karmele Urresti from Ondarutar, a nurse and member of the Eresoinka choir, with whom, after the Nazis entered Paris, he exiled to Venezuela.

Three years later and after an explicit request from Lehendakari Aguirre, they returned to Euskal Herria to continue working in the tion Services, thus integrating into the anti-Franco resistance.

He was arrested in Donostia in 1946 and, after being released on parole, arrested again in Barcelona the following year. Court martialhe was sentenced to five years for conspiracy to rebel.

His physical and mental decline Guadalajara Prison accelerated his release, a deterioration that led to his death two months later, on December 20, 1950, in Madrid, where he was under the care of his brother Juan.

According to GEBehatokia, “These events undoubtedly constitute crimes against humanity and therefore inexplicable and unamnestiableas recognized, in addition to international law, by Law 20/2022 on Democratic Memory”.

However, “the courts turn a deaf ear to this law, in accordance with the pre-constitutional Amnesty Law 46/1977 and rejecting complaints and their calls for the refusal of the investigation and, where necessary, the trial of Franco criminals,” he denounced.

In the words of this group: “the victims of the Franco regime, who suffered very serious rights violations in the late 1940s and 1950s, are particularly unprotected: they were not welcomed by decrees of recognition and compensation for the direct victims of the war and the immediate post-war period”.

Aware of the difficulties that victims of the state and their families face in obtaining it justice and restorationGEBehatokia has reiterated its readiness to “take all possible actions to demonstrate the impunity, the cover-up of the perpetrators by state apparatuses and the inhibition of the justice system to investigate the facts, determine responsibilities and provide justice to these victims .”