September 1975: The Courts Martial of the members of the FRAP

Abstract

In February 1975, members of the Executive Committee of the Marxist-Leninist Communist Party of Spain, the PCE (m-l), traveled to Paris in order to receive political guidance from the leadership residing abroad. Among the guidelines set was the need to carry out actions of greater violence in order to make oneself known. To do this they would use their mass organization, the F.R.A.P. In the execution of these plans, on July 14, 1975, armed police officer Lucio Rodríguez Martín was murdered on Alenza Street in Madrid. And, a month later, Civil Guard lieutenant Antonio Rodríguez poses at the door of his house in the El Batán neighborhood, also in the capital. Eleven suspects of having committed both attacks were arrested and tried in two court martials held in the El Goloso barracks (Madrid). The first, ordinary, on September 11 and 12, 1975 and the second, summary, on the 18th of that same month. The result: two sentences, eleven sentences, eight of them to death. Finally five were commuted. The other three were executed on September 27, 1975.