Guillem Agulló i Salvador

Description

In the early hours of 11 April 1993, in Montanejos (Castellón), a far-right group murdered 18-year-old Valencian Guillem Agulló i Salvador, a resident of Burjassot (Valencia), by stabbing him in the heart with a knife. He was a swimmer and had even been shortlisted to take part in the 1992 Barcelona Olympics. Despite his young age, he was already a well-known anti-racist and anti-fascist activist in 1990s Valencia, and was a member of the SHARP group and Maulets.

During Easter 1993, he was camping with friends when, late at night in the village square, a far-right group came looking for him and began to beat him, while preventing his friends from doing anything to help him. The attackers cornered him in an alleyway, stabbed him in the heart, and left singing Cara al Sol and making the fascist salute.

For years, his family — his parents and sisters — were subjected to harassment, threats, graffiti, and phone calls from the far right. There were also graffiti messages saying “Guillem, screw you”, even in football stadiums and near his home. The newspaper Las Provincias’ coverage of the case, which included false reports aimed at exonerating the killers, amounted to a further victimisation of the victim.

The courts did not consider the aggravating factor of hate and treated the crime as the result of “a youth brawl”. The confessed killer, Pedro Cuevas, served four years in prison. In 2007, he appeared on the electoral list of the far-right party Alianza Nacional in the municipal elections in Chiva (Valencia). The other individuals involved were acquitted. Years later, Agulló’s killer was charged in the so-called Operation Panzer, involving a terrorist cell known as the Frente Anti Sistema (FAS), which possessed an arsenal of weapons and a grenade launcher. All its members were acquitted after telephone wiretaps were ruled inadmissible as evidence.

The case of Guillem Agulló deeply shocked Valencian society and marked an “awakening” for many young people, as it showed that fascists were still killing in a democracy. Today, Agulló is regarded as a symbol of the fight against far-right terrorism in the Valencian Community.

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