Dates are so important for memory… There are days we don’t need to mark on the calendar because our bodies know that a year ago, two years ago, fifty years ago, something happened. Like your mother, every June 28th, when the anniversary of her daughter’s death came around and she didn’t want to leave the house—even though it was the town’s festival. Surely your mother didn’t need to check what day it was; every summer, when that date came, her body knew.

We talked a lot about dates in your kitchen.

Juanlu: Do they still hold the session in Congress on June 28th?

Bego: Yes, yes, yes, Juan Luis.

Juanlu: They’ve declared it the Day of the Victims.

Bego: Yes, for the victims.

Even though we always waver between two dates. Because even if Congress chose the 27th as the official Day of the Victims, the marked date in your house was the 28th. Yes, the bomb exploded on the 27th, but the girl—your sister—died the following day.

Juanlu: Congress declared the 27th.

Isabel: Well. You’ll hear more about that.

Bego: In fact, the day that…

As if there were, on one side, the day of your family’s memory, and on the other, the official day for the victims of terrorism.

Because memory has its private days, but it also has public ones. Days when, collectively, we decide to commemorate something—and those, yes, we mark on the calendar. As if to make sure we don’t forget, to make sure we all agree.

There’s a quote from the philosopher Walter Benjamin that I love. He said calendars don’t measure time the way clocks do. And that when we decide to celebrate a specific day as a society, we turn it into a monument of historical consciousness. Historical consciousness—a monument made not of marble or stone, but of time.

I like thinking of public memory days like that—as monuments a society has chosen to build. That’s why, in this episode, Bego, I want us to focus on that monument made of time: the Day of the Victims of Terrorism. How it came to be, when it was chosen, and why your sister was chosen.

Welcome, Bego. Welcome everyone, to She Had My Name. A documentary series about your sister, the girl Begoña Urroz, about your family’s silence… and about the noise that broke it.
A series by (De eso no se habla), co-produced with EITB Media and supported by the Ministry of Culture.

This is Episode 5: The Day.

If a monument is a reflection of something, it is—above all—a reflection of the historical moment in which it was made. Someone, usually someone with power, decides to build a monument to a person or an event that they consider important at that time, and especially for that time.

And to begin this episode, I want us to focus on that someone—on the person who says, “we’re going to commemorate this, and this is how we’re going to do it.”

Isabel: Hello? My name is Isabel…

Since I started working on this series, I knew that sooner or later I’d have to speak with José Bono.

Isabel: I’m interested in speaking with José Bono for an interview about…

He was the President of Congress in 2010, when the Day of the Victims was established.

Isabel: For an interview about something he was involved in back in 2010… Quite a long time ago.

The truth is, it was easier than I expected. His secretary replied very quickly, and that same day, Bono called me. Of course he remembered your sister—the little girl, he called her. And of course we could talk. He would check his schedule and suggest a date. Before hanging up, he asked who I thought had killed your sister. I told him: the DRIL. That same day, he sent me a message proposing a meeting the following week, at his home in Toledo.

Bono: Okay, let’s see if we can wrap this up quickly, all right?

Isabel: Well, you might enjoy the conversation.

Bono: Yeah, but I have… they’re picking me up at 11, so you’ve got half an hour.

Isabel: At 11? I’ve got 24 minutes.

Bono: That’s right.

Isabel: Wow.

Bono: Alright, let’s get to it.

Bono received me in his living room—a spacious room, carpeted, with lots of light. He didn’t have much time, so we had to get straight to the point.

Isabel: I don’t know if you can tell me… about the Day of the Victims. How does the process work to choose a date in honor of something?

Bono: Normally, the initiative comes from groups or individuals. In this case, the initiative was personal—from the President of Congress.

With the first question, Bono already gave me several answers: first, he told me that yes, the idea came from “the President of Congress,” meaning it was his own personal initiative. And second, he told me why he felt it was necessary to establish a Day for the Victims.

Bono: I thought that the victims of terrorism deserved a dedicated day, a day to remember them. No one truly dies as long as they’re not forgotten. And Spain has a moral obligation to those who lost their lives at the hands of terrorists and heartless people.

Then I asked him how he had first learned about your sister’s story.

Bono: I had known about Begoña Urroz for some time, but more specifically, it was through a publication by Ernest Lluch, in which he quoted a priest—a canon of San Sebastián, Pagoda—who spoke unequivocally and with apparent moral certainty that ETA had been the perpetrators of that murder.

So, Bono had come across your sister’s story through Lluch’s article. But that article was published in 2000. Ten years passed between that article and the decision to choose the date for the Day of the Victims.

Isabel: I’m trying to figure out why all of this happened in 2010. Because between the year 2000, when Lluch published his article—and was killed—and 2010, nothing really happened. It was in 2010 that it resurfaced. But you’re telling me you knew about it before…

Bono: Let’s see.

Bono had notes—dates, meetings, people he had spoken to over the years. He started looking through them.

Isabel: Do you write everything down?

Bono: Yes, as you can see.

Isabel: Incredible.

Among those notes, Bono found a first reference: in December 2009, he had received some information about your sister. But he hadn’t written down who told him or where it had come from.

Isabel: And you don’t remember where that information came from? Because it would be so important to know.

Bono: I don’t know right now. I’d be lying if I said I did… It’s not something I noted down. I didn’t write it down, but… But it was in December 2009, yes.

In any case, Bono told me that, to him, the exact date wasn’t the most important thing.

Bono: To me, the key wasn’t the date itself, but honoring the victims. Choosing the wrong date could ruin the whole idea, so it had to be done carefully. I presented the proposal to the victims’ associations—there were several at the time, and not all of them had good relationships with each other.

It wasn’t the first time in our conversation that Bono said this—“not to ruin the commemoration by picking the wrong date.”

Isabel: When you say “ruin it,” what do you mean? Like it could be compromised by the date? What exactly do you mean?

Bono: I mean that the initiative—honoring the victims—was what really mattered. The date was secondary. And disagreement over the date shouldn’t undermine the main goal, which was to pay tribute to the victims of terrorism.

And Bono told me that, to avoid ruining the day, he made a proposal to the victims’ associations:

Bono: I proposed two dates. This one—June 27th—because it was the anniversary of the killing of Begoña Urroz. And also March 11th, because it was a particularly significant date, as it marked the day of the jihadist attack in Madrid.

This really surprised me, Bego. It was the first time someone told me that two dates had been considered for the Day of the Victims. That your sister’s date wasn’t the only one. And Bono told me, in fact, that initially the chosen date was going to be March 11th.

Bono: At first, there was agreement on March 11th, and later my Chief of Staff, after speaking with Maite Pagazaurtundua…

Maite Pagazaurtundua was, at that time, the president of the Foundation for Victims of Terrorism.

Bono: They thought Begoña Urroz’s date was more appropriate, and all the victims’ associations, without exception, unanimously proposed it to me.

And once the decision was made, Bono carried out the necessary consultations. He checked the date with José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, the Prime Minister.

Bono: And he also thought June 27th was a very good choice.

With the leader of the opposition, Mariano Rajoy:

Bono: He gave me his approval and said, “But it would be good to make sure there are no issues among the victims’ associations.” And I told him, “That’s already taken care of.”

And finally, he consulted the King:

Bono: Who agreed with it from the very beginning.

And once everything was settled, he sat down to write the speech.

Bono: I wrote it myself.

He remembers the day with emotion.

Bono: Of course. How could I not? What was truly moving and beautiful for me was that all the victims’ associations agreed. All the political parties agreed. And that day is one I’ll never forget.

[Music]

I don’t know if you remember, Bego, my obsession with those three months that passed between that March 11th, when Bono announced the Day of the Victims, and June 27th, when it was commemorated. Those three months in which someone could have spoken up and said there were serious doubts that your sister was ETA’s first victim. I asked him about that—if no one had warned him. And I was surprised: Bono told me yes, he had received warnings. Like this one:

Bono: I got a report from the National Intelligence Center that cast some doubt—not categorically, but it raised some doubt—on ETA’s involvement.

Or this one:

Bono: And it’s true that a PNV lawmaker told me he didn’t believe ETA had killed Begoña Urroz.

That must have been Josu Erkoreka, the PNV’s spokesperson in Congress in 2010, whom you heard in the previous episode.

Bono: I listened carefully because I respected his opinion. But it wasn’t decisive for me, because Ernest Lluch’s written testimony held more weight.

I had brought some things to fact-check with Bono—comments from people who had mentioned him in interviews and which I now had the chance to ask him about directly. For example, what El País journalist Luis Aizpeolea told me:

Aizpeolea: You can tell him I said that I once brought this up to him—my doubts about this case.

Or what José Manuel Rodríguez Uribes told me about when he and the Interior Minister, Alfredo Pérez Rubalcaba, heard that the Day of the Victims would be June 27th:

Uribes: In fact, we were both surprised—we were together when we heard it.

Bono: Well, if they were surprised, it was because they hadn’t read Ernest Lluch, nor what had been written up until that point—which really surprises me.

[Music]

Now, 15 years after that date was chosen, while we talked in his house in Toledo, Bono told me he was aware that your sister had been a victim of the DRIL.

Isabel: Let’s wrap up, since you have to leave. You asked me on the phone who I thought it had been… In 2010 and 2011, in your speeches, you said it had been ETA… but this kept going…

So I asked him, how do you correct something like that? Who should do it?

Bono: Well, in life we all make mistakes—priests make them, journalists make them, politicians make them… And people who aren’t arrogant and who care about the truth, the best thing they can do when they make a mistake is to correct it. Admitting a mistake is wise, of course. Doing it constantly is foolish. And this is clearly a case where, out of respect—especially for the person whose life was taken by a terrorist group—it’s right to correct the record and say that it wasn’t ETA. Because that now seems proven. And that doesn’t mean, not in the least, defending ETA.

Time was up, so I asked him if he wanted to add anything else.

Bono: Just that this was a mistake—an error that was easy to fall into, because it didn’t seem to be deliberately promoted by anyone. But it became entrenched as an incontrovertible truth, and the media repeated it so often that it became almost dogma. But sometimes, dogmas are false—and this is one of those cases.

Isabel: Thank you so much. I hope this wasn’t…

Bono: No, not at all. The thing is…

Isabel: Yes.

[Music]

The interview lasted 32 minutes. Bono gave me 8 more minutes than he had originally promised. I left his house thinking about the emphasis he placed on unanimity, on how “the day shouldn’t be ruined,” and, above all, on that other possible date for the Day of the Victims—the 11th of March. It was the first time someone told me there had been two possible dates for the commemoration. But I must tell you, Bego, that it wasn’t the first time I had thought of March 11th while working on this series.

[Music]

In the previous episode, I told you that Bono made the announcement about the Day of the Victims precisely on March 11th, during a tribute event for the victims of the jihadist attacks in Madrid. That has always caught my attention—that on that day, March 11th, the announcement was made about creating a national day for victims, yet the chosen date was a different one. That’s one thing. And then there’s the fact that March 11th was already the European Day of Remembrance for Victims of Terrorism. The European Parliament declared it in 2004, just hours after the attacks. So… was it really necessary to choose another day?

That’s why, when Bono told me that March 11th had also been considered as the day, it confirmed my feeling that something had happened between the two dates. Since then, I’ve spoken to a lot of people about this. I’ve cross-checked many sources, and I’ve read a lot of newspapers from that year—2010. There’s even an article in the newspaper ABC that says that, on the morning of March 11, 2010—the very day Bono made the announcement in Congress—the speech he had prepared originally said this:

“From today forward, every March 11th will be commemorated across Spain as the Day of the Victims of Terrorism.”

And that just before delivering it, he changed it to this:

Bono: The unanimous decision is that the date shall be June 27th of every year.

So, it seems that the debate between the two dates may have lasted right up to the very day the Day of the Victims of Terrorism was officially announced.

[Music]

I began this episode with a metaphor: choosing a day on the calendar as a kind of monument made of time. And if a monument reflects something, it mostly reflects the historical moment in which it was created. It’s like saying: at this time, for this society, this day matters. And that’s why I believe that understanding how the date was chosen is just as important as understanding why that date was chosen. And I think it has everything to do with the context.

Presenter: Midday at Congress. The bell rings. The president enters the chamber and, without preamble, gets straight to the point: the fight against terrorism.

In 2010, Spain was governed by the Socialist Party, with José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero as prime minister. Zapatero had been in power since 2004. He had won the election just three days after the March 11 attacks, and his years in government were marked by the shadow of those events—especially by the political tension surrounding one issue: terrorism.

Rajoy: You are a radical, and you flaunt it…

I had almost forgotten what those years were like. This, for example, is audio from the first state of the nation debate under Zapatero’s government, in 2005.

Zapatero: The end of violence has no political price. But politics can contribute to ending violence.

Here’s Zapatero saying he aimed to end ETA’s violence, and that he intended to engage in dialogue. And Mariano Rajoy, the opposition leader, responded like this:

Rajoy: You’re the one who decided to change direction. To betray the dead and allow ETA to recover the ground it lost when it was pushed back.

You can hear it: the boos come from the Socialist benches, the applause from the PP. Rajoy had said that by negotiating with ETA, Zapatero was “betraying the dead.” And that polarization spilled into the streets as well.

 

[Protest chants]

Those years saw several demonstrations against dialogue with ETA.

Presenter: With the main slogan on the banner from the Association of Victims of Terrorism, “For them, for everyone. No negotiations in my name.”

But not all victims attended those protests.

Isabel: Did you go to those demonstrations?

Pablo: No. I didn’t go.

This is Pablo Romero, a journalist and also a victim: his father, who was in the military, was killed by ETA in 1993. Pablo remembers those years very well.

Pablo: 2005 and 2006, well, I think we all witnessed a series of massive demonstrations, called by victim associations, but always with people from the Popular Party in the front rows, PP officials, and occasionally some stray bishop.

And it’s true that not all victim associations organized those protests.

Pablo: Far from all victim associations. There were many associations that refused to go because they saw how completely manipulated those calls were. They weren’t demonstrations in favor of the victims; they were against: against the government, against dialogue, against…

Pablo has been a great companion in this series, Bego. As a victim and journalist, I’ve talked with him a lot about the role of victims in the political scene of those years.

Pablo: Suddenly, ETA, becoming a political weapon, entered the very core of the Popular Party and later of other parties like Ciudadanos or Vox. They claimed to be the owners and exploiters of that pain, right? From then on, we were automatically labeled as Popular Party supporters. And I think that was one of the most painful revictimizations one can imagine. Because from then on, that idea crystallized in society, so they took advantage of the silence of many victims to claim ownership of that social and emotional capital. And that’s instrumentalizing pain.

Isabel: That sounds strong, this idea of instrumentalization.

Pablo: It is. But I can’t think of another word. Manipulating social pain generates political gain. I’m not making this up — it’s politics 101.

[Music]

Now victims are very visible, but it wasn’t always like this. While making this series, I heard a lot about the abandonment they suffered, especially the earliest victims. Someone told me that, in some attacks in the ‘70s, no one even came “to collect the shell casings.” Total neglect.

I also heard a lot about the guilt from that neglect. I especially remember a conversation with Luis Aizpeolea.

Aizpeolea: There’s a certain sense of guilt in the media, about the real abandonment, because it’s true—we abandoned them. It’s self-criticism I’ve been doing for a long time. All of us, in the ‘80s and ‘90s, victims… Since we thought the ETA problem had to be solved through dialogue, they didn’t want victims to get in the way and ignored them. Even beneath a basic humanity, we failed there, not only politicians but also the media.

But in this series, we’ve also talked about a change: how attacks stopped being just events that happened and victims started to become aware of their status and demand a place in society. So the first victim associations were formed in the ‘80s, the first laws were passed in the ‘90s, and little by little, victims emerged from invisibility.

And then we reached 2010. The year the Victims’ Day was established. ETA’s end felt closer than ever: that year, for example, the Basque left-wing (izquierda abertzale) presented a document rejecting the use of violence as a political tool. A document that marked a turning point. And speaking of dates, here’s a coincidence: that document was presented on February 15, 2010—the very same day your mother and you attended the homage in the Lasarte town hall. That first tribute.

At the time, we didn’t know it, but in 2010 ETA would carry out its last attack. Those were times to solidify the narrative. The narrative, that is, how the story would be told later.

[Music]

Since I started this series, I always thought that if anyone could tell me about the relationship between that end-of-ETA context and the Victims’ Day, it could only be one person.

Isabel: Ask him what he had for breakfast today?

Zapatero: Yes, I had breakfast after going for a run, which I usually do. I had scrambled eggs with coffee and milk.

I met José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, president from 2004 to 2011, in his Madrid office. It’s an office facing the street, so there was quite a bit of noise, especially traffic. Zapatero asked me how your family was. I told him about this story we were making and explained why I wanted to talk to him: I wanted to talk about that year 2010, when suddenly everything converged to break the silence around your sister.

Isabel: It was when three big things happened: the homage in Lasarte; the publication of the book Vidas Rotas; and the journalist Jesús Duva read that and did a report titled “The First Victim of ETA.” And there it was… The first.

Zapatero: Yes, it caused a state. It became official truth.

“It caused a state,” he said thoughtfully. “Official truth”.

Zapatero: I think that because the attack was in the Basque Country, it was easy by inertia to think ETA could have been the author.

Zapatero mentioned that “easy by inertia” several times — meaning it was the inertia of thought. It was easy to think it was ETA for several reasons: because it was in the Basque Country and because the DRIL group was practically unknown.

Zapatero: I think if we had done a survey among all the police and civil guard, less than 1% would have known DRIL.

And how did that “official truth,” as Zapatero called it, become the Victims’ Day instead of other possible dates? I asked him about that struggle between dates.

Isabel: There was already a day to honor terrorism victims in Europe, which was March 11th. Why was there a need for another one?

Zapatero: It’s obvious. March 11th was the harshest terrorist attack we’ve suffered due to the terrible number of victims.

Of course, Zapatero had a lot to say about March 11th.

Zapatero: Because here we had a founding moment of conspiracy theories and fake news, which was all the conspiracy theory around March 11th. And that obviously made it very difficult for March 11th—the natural date, since it was the most brutal attack—to be established as Victims’ Day.

And it seems that, given that impossibility, as Zapatero said, your sister’s date appeared as an alternative.

Zapatero: It had two qualities, right? One, that she was the first and a child. And two, that it happened in the Basque Country. And that carries the “inertial” surname of ETA.

As if your sister fulfilled everything: being a child, the epitome of innocence; having been murdered by ETA; and being the first.

Zapatero: I knew there was some controversy over the date chosen. I interpreted that day was chosen because it guaranteed consensus.

[Music]

Your sister as a victim of consensus.

Zapatero: And along with that, undoubtedly, closing the whole story of intrinsic evil that terror means, killing for ETA, it was very clear that that first terrorist attack fit perfectly to close a whole story of terror and evil. Yes, in the context where we were trying to reach an end through dialogue, there was a foregrounding of victims as an element of confrontation, of moral rupture. This is a reflection that has anguished me, and I say it sincerely. It has anguished me a lot. When ETA victims began to occupy a central role. Soon it ended up being an element of politicization. And it was… Of course, every time the victims called a demonstration against dialogue with ETA, I suffered. I suffered. I must say it. I think this is the first time I say it like this.

[Music]

Zapatero told me that precisely because of that context, he did not take part in the decision about the victims’ day.

Zapatero: Well, I was accused, like I was a traitor and that I was more or less working in favor of ETA. So deliberately, I stayed in the background, meaning, well, whatever the Congress of Deputies tells me, of course.

I asked if he had ever had doubts about the authorship of the attack.

Zapatero: No, I wasn’t very aware. I was aware it wasn’t an indisputable truth. But…

Again, the inertia.

Zapatero: Like the understandable inertia that ETA, Basque Country, could have been responsible, well, let’s say it didn’t make me question the date, right? That’s how we’d put it.

Isabel: It’s hard to hear this, huh? Because… well, I have a lot of people… Txema Urkijo, for example, whom I’ve interviewed several times, said that in the Basque Government, for them, Begoña wasn’t a victim. And he says it with regret, right? He says “I say it with regret, but she wasn’t part of our political violence history.” And I wonder if you say this with regret too, because in reality she wasn’t an ETA victim.

Zapatero: Well, yes, sometimes consensus determines these things. And also, of course, you have to put yourself in the context. I was an absolutely attackable and attacked object by a sector of victims and the political right in a very harsh way. So no, I must say no, I didn’t consider the risk that could exist in consolidating this date, right? They accepted it as good, and I didn’t decide to take any initiative. That’s the truth.

And what does he think now, after so much time, now that I have told him about you, your family?

Isabel: What do you think now when I tell you about…? Well, about the family, for example?

Zapatero: No, the important thing is that… We know the truth now. To the family. To the tragedy of the death of a baby, a further sorrow has been added, which I have always seen in victims. And it’s the uncertainty, the insecurity about what has happened. And well, sometime I would like to be able to give a hug to the other Begoña.

[Music]

We talked a bit more about politics, about Euskadi then and now. Zapatero spoke a lot about the lasting damage, about how political violence always leaves a mark.

Zapatero: Whenever a country is struck by violence or terrorism, there are false facts that harm memory, political exploitation, rifts…

And he also told me that maybe it was time to know the truth about some things.

Zapatero: I sometimes thought, and still think, that the passing of years since the end of violence could give us perspective and calm to face things with more unity, with more historical awareness, with more love for the victims. But it’s not easy. Even years after ETA’s violence ended, the debate about the victims still has political edges that tarnish us as a country. They tarnish us as a country.

And I thought that was precisely your sister’s story: one of those political edges that “tarnish us as a country.”

Isabel: But what should be done? Could there be a denial or a correction? Has that ever happened?

Zapatero: Well, I think it’s important that the truth has been established, right? And I think there should be a calm debate about what happened and what should happen in the future. If the political climate allows it, which is the most important restriction. I think in her case, the initiative, which I don’t know if it’s part of this dialogue, should come from the Presidency of the Congress of Deputies. And of course, nothing can be done without consensus. It’s obvious, right? Politics has sometimes unwritten rules, but not even changing dates for the sake of truth can be done without consensus.

Isabel: Thank you very much.

Zapatero: Thank you.

That phrase from Zapatero stuck with me: “not even changing dates for the sake of truth can be done without consensus.”

[Music]

And so, with all that in my head, I went once more to Lasarte, to your kitchen, and the three of us sat down together to listen. We had known each other for a long time, Bego, and we had done many times that little ritual of ours of listening to the information I brought. But it was very hard for me to show you this episode. It wasn’t going to be easy to hear.

Isabel: We paused to comment.

Bego: I wouldn’t know how to say. It’s like listening and listening. And in the end, it’s a bit like the feeling that… In the end it was the… Well, I don’t know. The girl was the… Well, then…

Juanlu: They chose her because there was a bit of consensus, nothing else. Yes. Consensus.

Bego: Yes. Because…

Juanlu: The date.

Bego: Yes, because the 11th didn’t come… It wasn’t good, it wasn’t good. However, my sister was suitable.

Juanlu: They didn’t do it for the girl, they did it for convenience.

Bego: Yeah.

[Music]

Isabel: And how do you feel about that?

Bego: A little sad. A little sad.

Juanlu: You feel used in the end. Used in every way.

Bego: Yes, because in the end nobody… Now yes, right? From 2010 on, when it came out… But all those years, nobody gave it importance, right? That was it. That was it. And then you enter and then the date suits them, etc. Luckily I didn’t go to that homage. You said we should have gone… After all this, I don’t regret at all not going. Neither that year nor the next. They stopped doing it.

Juanlu: Imagine… Oh God. On top of that… Of course, we don’t have this information, not at all. Imagine if they made you, well, made you speak or anything…

Bego: But anyway, that’s the pity, right? Because in the end they use the victims and in my case, well, for many years it was silent and then suddenly how convenient, right? It’s an anecdote, but an anecdote that is convenient. Well, then there were homages, my mother experienced them, in that sense I’m happy.

Juanlu: The good thing you can take from all that is that your mother left with that.

Bego: Yes, in that sense I’m happy. My mother left happy. That’s why I say luckily.

I had started this episode talking about that monument of time which is the days we mark on the calendar, days of public memory. But we were missing one thing, an important thing. Because once someone decides to erect a monument, they have to choose what form to give it. For example, if what is decided to commemorate is a battle, what do you erect? An equestrian statue of the general who led it? A cross for those who died on the battlefield? For civilian victims? An abstract monument so that no more wars happen? You have to find an image that represents everything you want that day to represent: a perfect image.

And that seems to have happened with the day of victims of terrorism. Suddenly, your sister appeared as that, the perfect victim: an innocent child, murdered by ETA, who was the first and who also did not belong to any political party. A victim capable of generating “unanimity,” that word that was probably the most repeated that day.

That same June 27th, José Bono gave an interview to the newspaper ABC. The journalist asked him: Why precisely this day? And Bono replied: “So that the ignorant or the wicked cannot say that the first victim of ETA was a politician, a soldier, a guard or a policeman. It was a girl who today would be 52 years old.”

And so, the most debatable case had become indisputable.

But it wouldn’t stay that way forever.

In the next episode, I want to talk exactly about that: how that version began to unravel, and how your sister went from being “the first victim of ETA” to simply “the first victim of terrorism.”

But the fact is that, today, your sister is not recognized as the first victim of terrorism in Spain.

That, coming up in the next episode.