Party lawyers in Spain hit with chains

Press, Volume CXV, Issue 33995, 8 November 1975, Page 17

Party lawyers in Spain hit with chains

.Veto Zealand Press Association —Copyright)

MADRID, November 7. Right-wing gunmen yesterday pistolwhipped and beat with spiked steel chains seven lawyers representing outlawed opposition reform parties, underscoring Spain’s political divisions in the twilight of Generalissimo Franco’s one-man reign.

Two journalists also were beaten. As General Franco’s survival battle completed its third week, the scattered political violence that began

earlier in the week in the provinces reached Madrid. Witnesses said that four masked gunmen, armed with sub-machine-guns, pistols and tear-gas, broke into a meeting of lawyers repre senting illegal Centrist and Leftist political parties advocating democratic change once General Franco is gone. Firing one shot into the ceiling, the raiders forced the seven lawyers and two Venezuelan reporters on to the floor, the witnesses said, and began pistol-whipping them and beating them with spiked steel balls attached to chains. The lawyers represent such groups as the Com-munist-dominated Democratic Junta, the Christian Democratic Party and the Socialist Workers Party — all pressing for the release of political prisoners and freedom of political choice, assembly, and the press. All of the men were treated for cuts and bruises at Francisco Franco Hospital. Some required stitches to close ' their wounds, but none was seriously hurt. One suffered a broken arm, another two broken ribs.