Spanish Prime Minster condemns killing of Spanish councillor

March 7, 2008 The Spanish Prime Minister, José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, agreed with the leader of the Partido Popular (PP), Mariano Rajoy, to cancel the closing events of the General Election campaign, and returned to Madrid from Málaga where he was told of the news during a political rally.

Zapatero spoke to members of the victims family ahead of making a statement from the Moncloa Palace in Madrid at 5pm this evening. He also spoke to the President of the Basque Parliament, Juan José Ibarretxe.

Zapatero told the press that the "ETA is defeated by democracy," and that the Government wants to roundly manifest that those who took part in the shooting will be arrested shortly, and to express its solidarity with the family and companions of Isaías, in both the PSE Basque Socialist Party and in the UGT trade union.

"Those who carried out this attack will be found guilty," he said, "just as others had been for carrying out other attacks. The Government will put all its determination and resources to that. Today they have added one more victim to their list of disgrace."

Zapatero continued, "We know that ETA is defeated by democracy and repudiated by the Spanish people together and by Basque Society. Its members have no other future than jail." He added that the terrorists had wanted to interfere in the pacific process of the citizens being called to the polling booths, and said that the Spanish democracy would not be challenged by those who fight against its basic principles.

In his first comment since the shooting, the PP leader, Mariano Rajoy, said "Everybody knows what I am thinking. ETA must lose all hope of achieving their political objectives." He said the only possibility for ETA is to disappear. He expressed his solidarity with the family.

Spanish Interior Minister, Alfredo Pérez Rubalcaba, has commented that ETA ‘will never manage to crush Spanish society’.