José María Sánchez García

Description

At 8:10 a.m. on May 24, 1989, ETA murdered National Police officers José María Sánchez García (34 years old) and Manuel Jódar Cabrera (35 years old), along with Ertzaintza officer Luís Hortelano García (33 years old), in a car bomb attack in Bilbao. The fallen officers were assigned to the explosive ordnance disposal (EOD) units of their respective forces.

It all began the afternoon before, when the perpetrators of the attack hijacked a taxi at gunpoint in Amorebieta, abandoning its owner tied to a tree near Lezama, just a few kilometers from Sondika airport. He was rescued at midnight by Ertzaintza officers. The discovery of the taxi driver led to a search for the vehicle, and police became suspicious when they found it near the Peugeot dealership in Zorroza. In order to draw the attention of the state security forces, the terrorists had previously planted a low-powered explosive device at the dealership. Once the first device exploded and the stolen taxi was located, police immediately closed off traffic on Fray Juan Street, an urban section of the road connecting downtown Bilbao with towns along the left bank of the Nervión River.

Shortly before 6:00 a.m., the TEDAX bomb squad began its work, after evacuating about 500 residents from the area, who gathered anxiously behind the police cordon, a hundred meters from the vehicle. According to newspapers of the time, sources from the Civil Government of Vizcaya confirmed that the specialists waited about half an hour before acting, in case the explosion at the dealership had affected the charge inside the taxi. They then placed two countermeasures: one to open the trunk and another to disable part of the device’s mechanism before approaching the car. Once there, due to the lack of space making it impossible to work on the explosive, the officers began manually removing bags and a container—at which point the bomb detonated, injuring eleven others as well.

The three police officers were blown to pieces by the explosion, which was caused by a canister containing twenty kilos of amonal, forty kilos of shrapnel, and a penthrite-based booster. The attack was meticulously planned by the terrorist organization to hinder the deactivation process and ensure casualties.

The remains of the three victims, along with the blast wave that injured eleven people, were scattered over a radius of more than 50 meters, creating horrifying scenes for the gathered residents who had been waiting for the operation to be completed. Some witnesses recounted how glass shards from nearby buildings and human remains rained down on them. The bomb was so powerful that firefighters had to climb onto the roof of a two-story building to clear it of victims’ remains.

All political parties, except for Herri Batasuna (now identified as EH Bildu), condemned the terrorist attack.

In February 2025, the widow and children of Manuel Jódar Cabrera, forever marked by their loss like all victims, recount what happened with deep sorrow, aiming only to ensure that future generations learn from these events. The shedding of blood will never be justified and will serve no purpose other than to bring pain and shame to the society that endures it.

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