ETA assassinated him by putting a sticky bomb beneath his automotive on at the present time in 1998.
He was 35 years previous, married and the daddy of two kids. A logger by career, Iruretagoyena was the second councilor that the Popular Party had obtained within the coastal city within the municipal elections of May 1995.
To kill José Ignacio, the terrorists entered his storage, pressured the passenger door, and positioned a bomb with a timer on the motive force’s seat.
Iruretagoyena left his home, within the Pilartxo Enea neighborhood, at half previous seven within the morning, stopped for breakfast in a bar and resumed his journey to his household’s enterprise, Maderas Iruretagoyena.
The gadget exploded a kilometer after the car began for the primary time, close to a faculty zone. He suffered, amongst different deadly accidents, the amputation of his leg and proper arm. He died on the scene of the assault an hour and a half later. Emergency groups couldn’t save his life.
Frustrated assault on its third anniversary
According to the newspaper accounts of that point, his buddy Gervasio Juaristi, a long-time militant of the PP within the Basque Country, had scolded José Ignacio for going with out an escort the day earlier than his demise. “What’s going to occur to me?” your reply.
And it’s that Iruretagoyena didn’t consider he was a “goal” of the terrorist group. He was the son of the folks, Basque, and Euskaldun. “He barely used Spanish. It can’t be mentioned that ETA has killed anybody who was extra from right here” than him, lamented the present president of the Basque PP Carlos Iturgaiz, who additionally held the place at the moment.
It was not the final time that the terrorist group needed to stain the reminiscence of the mayor. ETA tried to impress one other assault by putting a bomb subsequent to José Ignacio’s grave in 2001, throughout a tribute for the third anniversary of his demise. A failure within the distant management prevented the tragedy.
The materials authors of the assault had been ETA members Javier García Gaztelu, alias “Txapote”, and Irantzu Gallastegi, alias “Amaia”, sentenced to 46 years in jail by the National Court in a trial held in 2009 for his or her homicide.
Three years earlier, the identical courtroom sentenced Gregorio Escudero to 42 years in jail for having supplied the data that allowed the assault to be carried out.