Antonio Ricondo Somoza

Description

On the evening of 19 February 1992, an ETA unit parked a car containing 25 kilos of explosives at the La Albericia crossroads, on the Avenida de los Deportes in Santander, where national police patrols regularly passed. At 6.15 pm, when a police van was driving through the area, the terrorists detonated the device and a large explosion stopped the traffic.

Amongst those caught in the blast were Antonio Ricondo Somoza, who was driving on the opposite side of the road and died five days after the attack, and a married couple, Eutimio Gómez Gómez and Julia Ríos Rioz, who were walking along the street and were killed instantly. The police van was damaged and the officers severely wounded. A further 18 people suffered minor injuries. Ignacio Recarte Ibarra, Luis Ángel Galarza Quirce and Dolores López Resina were convicted of perpetrating the crime and Francisco Múgica Garmendia, alias Pakito, was convicted of being an accessory.

Antonio Ricondo Somoza had a degree in chemistry. He was due to be married that same summer. At the time of his death, he was on his way to finalise a contract for his father’s company. His father, an executive, had been forced to leave the Basque Country after receiving threats from ETA. An ambulance took Antonio Ricondo to hospital, where he was admitted in a coma. His family decided to keep him on life support so that his organs could be donated.

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