• Terrorism Clamor against the "red carpet" to Josu Ternera at the San Sebastian Festival
  • Cinema The San Sebastian Film Festival maintains Jordi Évole's documentary about Josu Ternera

The former leader of ETA José Antonio Urrutikoetxea, Josu Ternera, is credited in the documentary directed by Jordi Évole his intervention in the murder in 1976 of the mayor of Galdakao Víctor Legorburu, a crime for which he was never prosecuted and which was dismissed by the Amnesty Law of 1977.

As published on Thursday by the newspaper El Correo, the documentary Do not call me Ternera, which premieres next week at the San Sebastian Festival, "begins with an interview with the former municipal police of Galdakao Francisco Ruiz" who was shot when he tried to protect Legorburu.

In the documentary Évole shows Ruiz the "images in which Josu Ternera recognizes his intervention in the crime" and the former municipal policeman "comments on what those words suggest to him," the newspaper says.

For the murder of Legorburu three members of ETA were prosecuted but "never Urrutikoetxea", says El Correo, which specifies that there was no conviction since with the approval of the Amnesty Law in 1977 "that and other crimes received the free dismissal".

The Zinemaldia said on September 7 in a statement that the film, which has generated a strong controversy, "provides a hard and unprecedented look" at Urrutikoetxea's career as leader of ETA, addresses some of the decisive moments of the terrorist group and even "allows a victim to solve unknowns of the attack he suffered almost 50 years ago."

For the murder of Legorburu were prosecuted in 1977 Isidro Garayalde, Mamarru; Joaquín Villar Gurrutxaga, Fangio, and José Miguel Retolaza, Exequi.

The court order said that "two other people who participated" in the attack remained unidentified.

The command formed by these three terrorists and the two unknown persons was also involved in the assassination of the mayor of Oiartzun Antonio Echeverria in 1975, and in that of the mechanic José Antonio Galarza in 1976, which ETA itself acknowledged that "had been wrong because the target was the mayor of Zizurkil".

  • ETA
  • Jordi Evole