Arrests in Spain

Press, Volume CXIII, Issue 33230, 21 May 1973, Page 13

Arrests in Spain

N.Z.P.A.-Reuter —Copyright)

MADRID. May 20.

Several Communist organisations in Madrid are said to have been broken up by the arrests of many people, including some said to have been responsible for the May Day demonstration in which a young police inspector was killed.

A statement by the country’s security head-; quarters does not say how many have been detained, but it does say that many were members of the outlawed Maoist-Communist Patriotic Anti-Fascist Revolutionary Front, which the police believe was responsible for the May Day killing. Four doctors and four nurses are among those arrested: the security communique says that the May Day demonstrators organised special medical squads to treat possible injuries sustained in their confrontation with the police. Some of those arrested are thought to have made petrol-bomb and windowsmashing assaults on banks and foreign companies in Madrid before the May Day events.

The communique says that documents seized from the detainees have disclosed that their aims included the overthrow of the regime in Spain through revolutionary struggle, the establishment of a “popular democratic federation,” and the creation of an “Army of the People.” Others arrested belonged to the Marxist-Leninist Communist Party of Spain, the Workers’ Union Opposition, the Women’s Popular Union, and the Spanish University Democratic Federation.

Many of those arrested had attended a clandestine meeting in Lavano, near Milan, Italy, at Easter, where plans to overthrow the Spanish regime were discussed, the statement says.