James Warren
A FORMER ETA member has returned to Spain to stand trial for the murder of a Spanish Lieutenant during the Vizcaya attacks in 1981.
Maria Natividad Jauregui Espina was delivered back to the Spanish judicial system for her role in the murder of Lieutenant Colonel Ramon Romeo Rotaeche in 1981.
The National court issued a request to the Belgium government back in October 2019 under a European Order of Surrender as revealed by a Police statement yesterday.
Jauregui Espina was arrested in the town of Ghent, Belgium in 2013 by the Belgian Federal Judicial Police for her alleged crimes.
The arrest came after Espina fled to France after the 1981 attacks because of her affiliations with the Iskulin faction of the ETA.
She then travelled to Mexico before being detained by police, along with fellow ETA member Jose Antonio Borde Gaztelumendi.
However she evaded punishment and secretly returned to Europe, finally settling in Belgium, where she would work as a private chef, even contributing to a published cookbook.
Lieutenant Ramon Romeo Rotaeche was killed in an assassination attempt on March 21, 1981, while leaving a religious ceremony in Bilbao.
As the Colonel left the Basilica’s gates, he was fatally shot in the neck by three assailants, a woman and two men.
While three male ETA members were arrested and sentenced for the attack, Enrique Letona Viteri, Jose Antonio Borde Gaztelumendi and Sebastian Echaniz Alcorta, the female that fired the shot was never apprehended.
