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GAL (an acronym for Grupos Antiterroristas de Liberación, "Antiterrorist Liberation Groups") were death squads established illegally by officials of the Spanish government to fight ETA, the principal Basque separatist militant group. They were active from 1983 until 1987, under Spanish Socialist Workers Party (PSOE)-led governments. It was proven at trial that they were financed by important officials within the Spanish Interior Ministry. The Spanish daily newspaper ''El Mundo'' played an important role in revealing the plot when it ran a comprehensive series of articles on the matter. == General history == GAL operated mainly in the portion of the Basque country on the French side of the Spanish-French border, but kidnappings and tortures were also performed at various places in Spain. The victims (at least 27 dead and 26 injured) were either members of ETA or Basque nationalist activists, but some victims were not known to have links to ETA or political violence at all. The GAL was active from 1983 until 1987, a period often referred to as ''La guerra sucia'' ("the dirty war") in Spanish history. The GAL did not have a coherent ideology. Its sole purpose was to attack ETA members and Basque nationalist targets, even at random, to spread confusion and put pressure on the French government. In this regard, the actual perpetrators were never militants, ''per se'', and certainly not militants in the political sense. Rather they were mercenaries. When the whole operation came to an end, in addition to GAL operatives a few Spanish policemen and government officials were also convicted. The scandalous revelations eventually led to terms in prison. For instance, the Interior Minister, José Barrionuevo, and his associate Rafael Vera, were convicted of the kidnapping of Segundo Marey, and General Galindo and the civil governor of Gipuzkoa, Julen Elgorriaga, were found guilty of the murder of Joxe Antonio Lasa and Joxe Ignacio Zabala in October 1983 (). General Galindo, condemned to a 75-year prison sentence, served only 4, and was released on "mental health" grounds. Prosecutors proved that the policemen who recruited mercenaries and the government officials who organized the dirty war's operations also embezzled large amounts of public money. Rafael Vera, among others, was sentenced for illegal appropriation of funds from the Ministry. Also, in order to buy their silence, the PSOE government bribed the individuals first jailed. Due to reports by investigative journalists from ''El Mundo'' and other Spanish newspapers, Felipe González, then prime minister of Spain and leader of the PSOE, was suspected of being involved with the GAL. Some people claimed that, although González probably knew about the GAL, he was not brought to trial because it would further discredit Spanish political institutions. The GAL was one of the main issues of the campaign during the elections of 1996 in which the PSOE was defeated by José María Aznar's People's Party (PP) for the first time. González then resigned as leader of the PSOE. With the exception of Ricardo García Damborenea, PSOE leaders have never acknowledged responsibility for the GAL, or condemned their crimes. González himself has never been charged with a GAL-related offence, but he has called publicly for pardons for his former subordinates. PSOE leaders campaigned for leniency towards their former colleagues, and the Aznar government pardoned some of them. After 1987, when the GAL disbanded, the French government adopted a harsher attitude towards Basque refugees, by denying political refugee status to new applicants, and facilitating extraditions requested by Spanish judges. This change weakened ETA's veterans. The GAL may have ensured ETA's survival by helping to preserve the image of an authoritarian state at war with the Basque people. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Grupos Antiterroristas de Liberación」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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