Attempted assassination of Antonio Cubillo

Attempted assassination of Antonio Cubillo
Attempted assassination of Antonio Cubillo
Location	Algiers, Algeria
Coordinates	36°42′00″N 3°13′00″E / 36.70000°N 3.21667°E
Date	5 April 1978 ; 08:01 (GMT)
Target	Antonio Cubillo
Attack type	Attempted murder
Weapons	Knives
Deaths	0
Injured	1
Perpetrators	Mercenaries of the Spanish government

On 5 April 1978, a failed attempt was made to assassinate Antonio Cubillo by agents of the Spanish police services. The assassination attempt followed a secret meeting in February of that year in Tripoli, the capital of Libya, of an ad hoc Liberation Committee of the defunct Organization of African Unity (OAU), predecessor of the African Union, led by Algeria, which intended to send a Commission to the Canary Islands to oversee their "decolonization".

Background

Between 13 and 18 February 1978, a so-called OAU Liberation Committee met in Tripoli, the composition of which is unknown in the absence of minutes of the meetings, which were secret. The Committee, according to a high-ranking Tanzanian military officer, had decided to support the Movement for the Independence and Self-determination of the Canaries Archipelago (MPAIAC), led by Antonio Cubillo, and to send a commission formed by Libya, Senegal, Nigeria and Guinea, in addition to Algeria, to supervise a "decolonization process" in the Canary Islands. The Committee would also have agreed, all at Cubillo's request, to raise the matter with the then secretary general of the OAU, William Eteki, although the OAU Council of Ministers refused to deal with the issue.^[1] Cubillo also intended to travel to New York City and present a resolution favorable to the independence of the archipelago before the United Nations General Assembly.

That Committee was in the specific interests of Algeria, which was thereby intended to divert attention from its political and economic problems.^[2] Two days after the meeting, Morocco and Mauritania withdrew their support for the Committee, also denying that the Canary Islands were African territory, as intended at the meeting.

For its part, the Congress of Deputies of Spain, in the session of 14 February 1978, with a vote against and at the proposal of all parliamentary groups, described the agreement of the Tripoli meeting as "interference in the internal affairs of Spain."^[3] Parties from across the parliamentary arc protested the interference and requested the planning of the military defense of the Canary Islands. Juan de Borbón, father of Juan Carlos I, had previously traveled to Libya to get Colonel Gaddafi to withdraw the support Cubillo had obtained from the Tripoli regime.^[4]

According to speculation in the newspaper Der Spiegel, the government of the Federal Republic of Germany would have assigned Werner Mauss, a special agent of the Lower Saxony police, to Las Palmas de Gran Canaria to obtain information from the MPAIAC. With this information he would have gone to Algiers to infiltrate the armed organization, although he would have been rejected. Even so, he would have remained in the city planning the murder.

The attack

José Luis Espinosa Pardo, a former Servicio Central de Documentación (SECED) infiltrator of the Communist Party of Spain (Reconstituted) (PCE(r)) and the Revolutionary Antifascist Patriotic Front (FRAP), who had previously offered to support Cubillo, hired mercenaries Juan Antonio Alfonso González and José Luis Cortés to carry out the assassination.^[5]^[6] Both moved to Algiers on the morning of 5 April 1978. The two men were waiting in front of the elevator of Cubillo's residence on Peking Avenue in that city. Upon arrival in front of the elevator, he was stabbed twice by surprise, receiving serious injuries to the back and abdomen. The mercenaries were about to cut his neck when they were surprised by the abrupt arrival of an Algerian official, so they were forced to flee. Antonio Cubillo had to use crutches after the attack.

According to Cubillo in later interviews, he went to the hospital on his own, arriving in a timely manner because street traffic was light due to an important football match. He also relates that the then President of Algeria, Houari Boumédiène, was personally concerned about the matter and ordered the arrest without further cause of all the Spaniards who were in the capital and the withholding of their passports; that was how Cubillo recognized his attackers. The police chief came to the conclusion that they were Spaniards because "If they have not insulted him while stabbing him it is because they were not Algerians."^[7] Cubillo, once he returned to Madrid, would blame the operation on interior minister Rodolfo Martín Villa.^[8]

Aftermath

The Algerian government concealed the attack on its protégé for several days,^[9] although the perpetrators of the attack were arrested on 5 April and sentenced to death by Boumédiène, but pardoned seven years later.^[10] These in turn declared after their release that they worked for José Luis Espinosa, whose whereabouts were unknown. However, on 22 October 1988, Espinosa was captured by the Spanish police forces and transferred to the provisional prison of Carabanchel under orders from the Audiencia Nacional. The matter also implicated the authorities and secret services of Lower Saxony for the involvement of agent Werner Mauss.^[11]^[12]

In 2003, the Audencia Nacional approved compensation of €150,253 for the terrorist action.^[6]^[13]

In 2009 Juan Antonio Alfonso apologized to Cubillo in a face-to-face meeting for a documentary.^[14]

Popular culture

A year after the events, Jordi Sierra i Fabra published the novel En canarias se ha puesto el Sol ("The Sun has set in the Canary Islands"). This novel deals with a hypothetical wave of MPAIAC attacks, including the hijacking in Barcelona of a train loaded with plutonium and a massacre at the Santiago Bernabéu Stadium with several thousand dead, followed by the invasion of the Canary Islands by Algerian submarines. In the novel Cubillo dies, serving as a pretext for the invasion.

References

^ Casares, Fernando (28 February 1978). "Pocas posibilidades de que el MPAIAC sea reconocido en la "cumbre" de Jartum" [Little chance of MPAIAC being recognized at Khartoum "summit"]. El País (in Spanish). Archived from the original on 5 September 2021. Retrieved 5 September 2021.
^ Casares, Fernando (27 April 1978). "La "cumbre" de la OUA en Jartum será prudente y realista en el tema canario" [The OUA "summit" in Khartoum will be prudent and realistic on the Canarian issue]. El País (in Spanish). Archived from the original on 5 September 2021. Retrieved 5 September 2021.
^ Alvarez de Miranda, Fernando (14 March 1978). "PRESIDENCIA DEL CONGRESO DE LOS DIPUTADOS" (PDF). Boletin Oficial de las Cortes (in Spanish) (69): 1254–1255. Archived from the original (PDF) on 9 December 2012. Retrieved 5 September 2021. Expresa la más enérgica condena del Congreso de los Diputados ante el Consejo de Ministros de la OUA, por su resolución sobre las Islas Canarias, que implica una injerencia en los asuntos internos de España.
^ "Las Canarias, tema del viaje de don Juan de Borbón a Libia" [The Canaries, subject of Don Juan de Borbón's trip to Libya]. El País (in Spanish). 20 January 1978. Archived from the original on 5 September 2021. Retrieved 5 September 2021.
^ Duva, Jesús (19 December 1988). "Ingresa en prisión el presunto inductor del atentado contra Antonio Cubillo" [The alleged instigator of the attack against Antonio Cubillo enters prison]. El País (in Spanish). Archived from the original on 5 September 2021. Retrieved 5 September 2021.
^ ^a ^b "Interior indemnizará con 150.253 euros a Antonio Cubillo por asesinato frustrado" [Interior will compensate Antonio Cubillo €150,253 for attempted murder]. ABC (in Spanish). 22 October 2003. Archived from the original on 27 June 2022. Retrieved 5 September 2021.
^ "La segunda vida de Cubillo" [The second life of Cubillo]. El País (in Spanish). 17 May 2008. Archived from the original on 5 September 2021. Retrieved 5 September 2021. Si no le han insultado mientras le apuñalaban es que no eran argelinos
^ "Cubillo culpa a Martín Villa en Madrid de haber permitido el atentado que sufrió en Argel" [Cubillo blames Martín Villa in Madrid for having allowed the attack he suffered in Algiers]. La Vanguardia (in Spanish). 20 August 1985. pp. 3, 10. Archived from the original on 5 September 2021. Retrieved 5 September 2021.
^ Fernández, Carlos (8 April 2003). "Detenidos en Argel los agresores del líder independentista Cubillo" [The attackers of the independence leader Cubillo arrested in Algiers]. La Voz de Galicia (in Spanish). Archived from the original on 4 January 2015. Retrieved 5 September 2021.
^ "Argelia indulta a los dos españoles implicados en el atentado contra Cubillo" [Algeria pardons the two Spaniards involved in the attack against Cubillo]. El País (in Spanish). 13 July 1985. Archived from the original on 5 September 2021. Retrieved 5 September 2021.
^ "Apuñalado por dos hombres" [Stabbed by two men]. El País (in Spanish). 4 January 1996. Archived from the original on 5 September 2021. Retrieved 5 September 2021.
^ "Werner Mauss: el espía implacable de los mil rostros" [Werner Mauss: The implacable spy of a thousand faces]. INTERNACIONAL. El Mundo (in Spanish). 6 January 1997. Archived from the original on 19 September 2020. Retrieved 5 September 2021.
^ "15 expedientes con la materia acción judicial" [15 files with the matter of judicial action] (in Spanish). Archived from the original on 18 November 2011. Retrieved 5 September 2021.
^ Millet Oviedo, Daniel (30 October 2009). "Cubillo, ante el allerano que quiso matarle" [Cubillo, before the allerano [person from Aller, Asturias] who wanted to kill him]. La Nueva España (in Spanish). Archived from the original on 25 August 2021. Retrieved 5 September 2021.