1980 Ispaster attack

The 1980 Ispaster attack was a gun and grenade assault carried out by the Basque separatist organisation ETA on 1 February 1980, on a road near the town of Ispaster in the Basque Country of northern Spain. The targets were a convoy of Civil Guards escorting workers and weapons from the nearby Esperanza y Cia arms factory to Bilbao. Six Civil Guards were killed, and two ETA members died after being struck by hand grenades they had thrown. According to the source, it was the deadliest ETA attack of 1980, the year in which the organisation killed more people than in any other.

The ambush took place on a Friday morning. ETA had watched similar convoys and planned the operation using information it had gathered. The convoy of four vehicles left the factory at 7:30 am; the first carried technicians, the third carried mortar devices made at the factory, and the second and fourth each carried three Civil Guards. At about 8:15 am the convoy slowed on a winding section of road, where the attackers were concealed by dense vegetation near a small hill. After letting the workers' vehicle pass, they launched a grenade at the second vehicle and opened fire with assault rifles, machine guns and grenades, firing more than 100 shots.

The attackers then approached the vehicles and threw grenades inside. During the second of these, two ETA members were killed when they failed to escape before the grenades detonated; one body was later found six kilometres away, apparently moved by fellow members. The drivers of the trapped third vehicle were released, and the weapons it carried were seized. Alerted by a resident who heard the gunfire, police reached the scene at 9:00 am and recovered grenades, 9mm ammunition and firearms of Belgian origin.

The attack came as devolution to the Basque autonomous region was imminent, with the first regional elections held a month later. It was condemned by the Basque General Council and major regional parties, including the Basque Nationalist Party, the PSOE, Euskadiko Ezkerra and the Union of the Democratic Centre. Disturbances occurred at the funerals of both the Civil Guards and the ETA members.

Legal proceedings extended over two decades. In June 1982 several defendants appeared in court accused of taking part in or assisting the attack. In 1984 Jaime Rementeria Beotegui was found guilty, fined and imprisoned; held since August 1983, he was released in January 2004. Francisco Esquisavel was also convicted and left prison in 2002 after 22 years. The final outstanding case closed in 1999, when Jose Luis Ansola Larranaga was acquitted for lack of evidence. On 13 July 1980 ETA attempted a similar ambush at Orio, killing two Civil Guards before losing two members to a counter-attack.