Francisco Javier García Gaztelu, known by the alias Txapote, ran the military apparatus of ETA from 1996 to 2001. Spanish courts have convicted him in a series of separate judgments of the deaths of fifteen people between December 1994 and July 2001, either as a member of the group's San Sebastián cell or as the leader who ordered the attacks. The sentences were handed down by the Audiencia Nacional in Madrid, the court that hears terrorism cases, over a period of eighteen years, from 2006 to 2024.
The best known of the cases is the killing of Miguel Ángel Blanco, a 29-year-old councillor of the Partido Popular in Ermua, who died on July 13, 1997. The killing became a turning point in the response to ETA. García Gaztelu was sentenced to 50 years for it in June 2006. His other convictions include the 1995 killing of the San Sebastián councillor Gregorio Ordóñez, the 1996 killing of the Socialist politician Fernando Múgica, the 2000 killings of the Socialist spokesman Fernando Buesa and Jorge Díez in Vitoria, and the 2001 killing of the Navarrese councillor José Javier Múgica in Leitza. The total of his sentences runs to several hundred years, but Spanish law limits the term actually served, and his combined sentence is 30 years, with a provisional release date reported as February 2031.
He was arrested in France on February 22, 2001, handed over to Spain in stages, and tried in Madrid between 2006 and 2024. In 2026 he remains named in cases that have not ended: an investigation in Madrid into the October 2000 killings of four people, and the prosecution of five former members of the group's executive committee over the Ordóñez killing, in which he is named as one of the material authors but is not a defendant.
García Gaztelu was 35 when he was arrested in February 2001 and 40 at the time of the first major judgment against him in 2006.
From 1996 until his arrest in 2001 he held the post of head of the group's military apparatus. A 2013 judgment of the Audiencia Nacional calls him its "responsable militar máximo", and the same judgment found that in 2000 he gave orders from France. Before and alongside that role he belonged to the Donostia cell, the unit based in San Sebastián (Donostia in Basque). The court that tried one of its other members found that at Christmas 1994 he, Juan Ramón Carasatorre and Valentín Lasarte formed an ETA cell in the city. Lasarte was arrested a year after the Ordóñez killing and gave a detailed statement.
The judgments against García Gaztelu fall into two groups. The first concerns killings carried out by the San Sebastián cell between 1994 and 1998, in which the court found him to be a direct author. The second concerns the campaign of 2000 and 2001, when he led the military apparatus from France and the courts found that he ordered attacks that others carried out.
The first death in the judgments is that of Alfonso Morcillo Calero, a municipal police officer in San Sebastián, in December 1994. García Gaztelu was sentenced for it in 2006 to 29 years.
Gregorio Ordóñez was a Partido Popular councillor in San Sebastián. He was killed there on January 23, 1995. The prosecution later placed the killing within a campaign against elected officials that followed the arrests of the group's leaders in 1992, calling Ordóñez the first elected official killed in it. García Gaztelu was sentenced to 30 years for the Ordóñez murder in 2006. Lasarte, a member of the same cell, was also tried and convicted. Carasatorre was sentenced in July 2011 by the Sala de lo Penal of the Audiencia Nacional, presided over by Javier Gómez Bermúdez, to 30 years, with a ban on entering San Sebastián for five years after his release and civil liability of 150,000 euros.
The case did not close with those judgments. On January 31, 2025 Judge Francisco de Jorge of the Audiencia Nacional indicted five members of the group's executive committee for the murder, on charges of terrorist murder and an attack on life. The judge treated the killing as a decision of the committee taken in 1994, and held that the committee controlled the cells. On August 7, 2026 the prosecution asked for 30 years for each of the five. The prosecution's account names García Gaztelu, Carasatorre and Lasarte as the material authors, and García Gaztelu is not among the accused in that case.
The 1996 killing of Fernando Múgica, a Socialist politician, took place in San Sebastián. On July 26, 2006 the Audiencia Nacional found García Gaztelu guilty of taking part in it and sentenced him to 82 years, with a ban of six years on approaching San Sebastián after release. A further judgment of the same period concerned the killing of the army brigadier Mariano de Juan Santamaría, for which he received 33 years as author.
Miguel Ángel Blanco was a 29-year-old Partido Popular councillor in Ermua. He died on July 13, 1997. His death became a turning point in the response to ETA.
The Audiencia Nacional sentenced García Gaztelu in June 2006 to 50 years for the murder, together with Irantzu Gallastegi, who was convicted in the same case. In its reasoning the court referred to the extreme gravity of the facts and to his absolute indifference and contempt during the trial. He was also barred from approaching Ermua for five years after his release. A former councillor of Eibar was convicted of sheltering the three and passing information, and was released in October 2020 after about two decades in custody.
In 2022 Judge Manuel García Castellón of the Audiencia Nacional, acting on a Guardia Civil report, summoned former members of the group's 1990s leadership over the killing. García Gaztelu is not among them.
Manuel Zamarreño, a councillor of the Partido Popular in Rentería, was killed on June 25, 1998. Two other people were injured. The court held that the Donostia cell carried it out and named García Gaztelu and Gallastegi among its members.
He was tried for it in 2024. On June 14, 2024 the Sección Segunda of the Sala de lo Penal of the Audiencia Nacional, with Judge Ana Revuelta reporting, sentenced both defendants to 110 years each. The offenses were one consummated terrorist murder, two attempted terrorist murders, terrorist injuries, terrorist devastation (estragos), and a further offense in respect of the means used. The murder carried 30 years. The court ordered compensation to the victim's family.
The longest list of cases comes from the year 2000, after ETA ended its ceasefire in December 1999. In these cases the courts found that García Gaztelu was the leader who ordered the attacks while in France.
On February 22, 2000 Fernando Buesa, the Socialist spokesman in the Basque Parliament, and Jorge Díez, who was with him, were killed in Vitoria. Two other people were injured. At the trial in October 2011 the prosecution asked for 105 years, and García Gaztelu declined to testify, saying he did not recognize the court's legitimacy; he had a short verbal exchange with the presiding judge, Ángela Murillo. On November 7, 2011 the fourth section of the Audiencia Nacional's Sala de lo Penal, with Murillo, Carmen Palomo González and Juan Francisco Martel, sentenced him to 105 years for two terrorist murders, two counts of injury, an offense of causing havoc, and falsification of an official document. It ordered 500,000 euros to the family of each victim. It was the first sentence handed to an ETA member by the court since the group announced an end to its violence.
In May 2000 José Luis López de la Calle was killed in Andoain. On January 22, 2009 the Audiencia Nacional found García Gaztelu guilty of ordering the killing, as a terrorist attack resulting in death, and sentenced him to 30 years with 300,506 euros in compensation to the victim's family. At that time he was already serving terms of 18 to 82 years for other killings.
In 2000 two Guardia Civil officers, Irene Fernández Perera and José Ángel de Jesús Encinas, were killed at Sallent de Gállego, in Huesca. García Gaztelu was sentenced to 75 years in 2011 as author. In the same year he ordered from France an attack on Ramón Rabanera, a former provincial leader in Álava, which was not carried out. The Sección Primera of the Sala de lo Penal sentenced him on February 13, 2013 to 24 years in total: 15 years for terrorist murder in attempted form and nine years for further offenses relating to the means. A separate judgment sentenced him to 18 years for an attack on a nightclub in Deba on September 10, 2000, and to 19 years for a further attempted murder.
On October 22, 2000 Máximo Casado Carrera was killed in Vitoria. The Audiencia Nacional's first section found that García Gaztelu, then in France within ETA's military apparatus, ordered the attack, and sentenced him as it did the three men who carried it out to 33 years: 30 years for "delito de atentado terrorista con resultado de muerte" and three years for "delito de daños con finalidad terrorista". The judgment was made public on October 1, 2019. The court ordered compensation to the victim's family.
In a further case, the sentence of 52 years announced on May 24, 2024 concerned an attack in Cintruénigo, in Navarre, in November 2000 that did not result in a death. The Sala de lo Penal sentenced García Gaztelu to 38 years for two counts of attempted terrorist murder and 14 years for terrorist devastation in attempted form. Two former members of the Ttotto cell, who acknowledged their participation in the trial, were sentenced alongside him. García Gaztelu refused to testify, and the court treated his silence as not denying his involvement. It concluded from documents and other evidence that he ordered the attack, an authorship "por inducción", not material execution.
José Javier Múgica, a councillor for UPN in Leitza, in Navarre, was killed on July 14, 2001. On November 16, 2011 the Audiencia Nacional sentenced García Gaztelu to 60 years for membership of a terrorist organization in a leadership capacity, murder, a further offense in respect of the means used, and terrorist devastation. A second member convicted of the same offenses received 58 years, and two others 50 years each, with compensation to the victim's family. The first trial had to be repeated after the presiding judge was heard on an open microphone using an insult about the defendants.
García Gaztelu was arrested in France on February 22, 2001, three days after an attack in Zumárraga that caused no injuries. He was described at the time as the top leader of the group's military wing, and the arrest as a heavy blow to it. The Spanish government announced it.
France handed him to Spain in stages, and he entered Spanish prison custody on December 15, 2005. France later approved extensions of the surrender so that he could be tried for cases beyond those for which he had been handed over. The Audiencia Nacional's request to extend it to the Zumárraga attack was approved by the investigation chamber of the Paris Court of Appeal after he had been questioned on June 1, 2021 and asked that the request be rejected. By June 2022 France had approved six further extensions.
By 2023 his twelve sentences for deaths added up to 603 years, plus separate terms for the attempt on Rabanera and the further attempted murder and the Deba attack. The Zamarreño judgment of June 2024 added 110 years more. The sentences were imposed under Spanish rules that limit the effective term, and his combined sentence is 30 years.
On June 1, 2017 a panel of the Audiencia Nacional acquitted him in a separate case over a 1995 attack by the Donostia cell on the civil government building in Gipuzkoa, on the ground that more than 22 years had passed and the offense was time-barred. The prosecution had asked for 14 years and eight months. He refused to testify.
In March 2021 he was moved to a prison in the Madrid region, as part of a policy of holding prisoners nearer to their region of origin. On August 31, 2022 the prison service and the Basque Government agreed his transfer to the Basque Country, and by July 2023 he was serving his term in a prison in the region. He has been placed in second grade, the ordinary regime. The provisional release date reported in 2022 and 2023 is February 14, 2031.
On October 30, 2000 four people died in Madrid: José Francisco Querol, Armando Medina, Jesús Escudero and Jesús Sánchez, the last of whom died days later. About 30 others were injured. Judge Santiago Pedraz of the Audiencia Nacional is investigating the killings after a complaint from the Asociación Dignidad y Justicia. A Guardia Civil report dated November 18, 2022 names nine former members of the group's leading body, including García Gaztelu, as having given the orders. In April 2023 the judge asked France for authorization to try him and three others. In February 2024 the French prosecution supported extending the surrender, and the investigation chamber in Paris was to decide on February 28, 2024. Spain alleges that he was a necessary accomplice in a terrorist murder and a leader of an armed terrorist group, carrying potential terms of 30 and 15 years. On July 14, 2025 the judge extended the investigation by six months and noted that no one had been formally charged.
For the Zumárraga attack of February 19, 2001, in which a juvenile centre was heavily damaged and no one was hurt, he is accused of recruiting the cell that carried it out, with charges of terrorist devastation and further offenses.
The Audiencia Nacional, in Madrid, hears terrorism cases in Spain, and its Sala de lo Penal sits in sections. Spanish law caps the time served: the 1973 Penal Code, under which prisoners such as Inés del Río Prada were sentenced, set a maximum of 30 years. A 2006 Supreme Court ruling, known as the Parot doctrine, applied reductions for work in custody to each sentence separately, not to the 30-year cap, so prisoners had to serve each sentence in turn until 30 years were completed. On October 21, 2013 the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights found that the application of the doctrine to Del Río Prada violated Article 7 and Article 5.1 of the European Convention and ordered her release. The ruling affected about 130 prisoners, and Spanish courts had to review each case. García Gaztelu was not a party to that case.
The Madrid killings of October 2000, the Zumárraga attack and the Ordóñez prosecution of the committee members involve allegations, not findings against him. The prosecution's view that the 1994 decision to kill Ordóñez was taken jointly by the committee has not been tested at trial.
December 1994: Alfonso Morcillo Calero is killed in San Sebastián.
Christmas 1994: the court finds that García Gaztelu, Carasatorre and Lasarte formed the San Sebastián cell.
January 23, 1995: Gregorio Ordóñez is killed in San Sebastián.
1996: Fernando Múgica is killed in San Sebastián; García Gaztelu becomes head of the military apparatus.
July 13, 1997: Miguel Ángel Blanco dies in Ermua.
June 25, 1998: Manuel Zamarreño is killed in Rentería.
December 1999: the ceasefire ends.
February 22, 2000: Fernando Buesa and Jorge Díez are killed in Vitoria.
May 2000: José Luis López de la Calle is killed in Andoain.
2000: two Guardia Civil officers are killed at Sallent de Gállego.
October 22, 2000: Máximo Casado Carrera is killed in Vitoria.
October 30, 2000: four people die in Madrid.
February 19, 2001: attack at Zumárraga.
February 22, 2001: García Gaztelu is arrested in France.
July 14, 2001: José Javier Múgica is killed in Leitza.
December 15, 2005: he enters Spanish prison custody.
June 2006: sentenced to 50 years for the murder of Miguel Ángel Blanco.
July 26, 2006: sentenced to 82 years for the 1996 killing of Fernando Múgica.
January 22, 2009: sentenced to 30 years for ordering the López de la Calle killing.
November 7, 2011: sentenced to 105 years for the Vitoria killings of February 2000.
November 16, 2011: sentenced to 60 years for the Leitza killing.
February 13, 2013: sentenced to 24 years for the attempt on Ramón Rabanera.
June 1, 2017: acquitted over a 1995 attack because the offense was time-barred.
October 1, 2019: 33-year sentence for the October 2000 Vitoria killing reported.
March 2021: moved to a prison in the Madrid region.
August 31, 2022: transfer to the Basque Country agreed.
May 24, 2024: sentenced to 52 years for attempted murders in Navarre.
June 14, 2024: sentenced to 110 years over the Rentería killing.
January 31, 2025: five committee members indicted over the Ordóñez killing.
July 14, 2025: Madrid investigation extended by six months.
August 7, 2026: prosecution requests 30 years for five committee members in the Ordóñez case.