The murder of Real Sociedad fan Aitor Zabaleta at the hands of Atlético de Madrid ultras, the limitations of the two subsequent judicial processes and the public ridicule that his family had to suffer caused wounds that, 25 years after that crime, still fester . The sad anniversary that is remembered these days, with a notable echo in Gipuzkoa, is serving to recover the memory of the young man and remember that injustice, something that the family is grateful for; However, when knocking on the door of his relatives, an unavoidable list of grievances comes up that reveals the judicial and social response that was given to this family, especially from the world of football.
Like 25 years ago, the Aratz restaurant in San Sebastián, located in the Ibaeta neighborhood, is the headquarters of the Zabaleta family. It is run by Iker and Xabier, two of Aitor’s four brothers. Chatting with the first of them, the oldest, it is impossible not to remember Javier Zabaleta, the father of the young man murdered by neo-Nazis from the Bastión group. He died six years ago, after having fought unspeakably hard to get justice for his son and to end the permissiveness in relation to the ultras. Iker is the living image of him and expresses himself with the same firmness.
“It is evident that justice has not been done. There was only one convict, when we know that several of them were held down and killed. Those who murdered him also functioned as a criminal group, but Bastion got away with it. And that’s not to mention the ridicule that the family members have had to experience: thousands of people chanting proclamations against the victim with total impunity and in the face of the passivity of Atlético de Madrid and the referees, calls to our home threatening us, an insane trial in which it seemed that the ultras were in their house…”, lists Iker Zabaleta.
The murder was perpetrated during the afternoon of December 8, 1998, 25 years ago today, in the run-up to a match between Atlético de Madrid and Real Sociedad. The young man, 28 years old, went with his girlfriend to Madrid on a trip organized by Izar, a group of women without the remotest connection with the ultra universe. After eating in a shopping center in Alcobendas, when they were walking around the stadium, they asked a police officer for somewhere to “get something”; It is at this moment that a key event occurred that was not even judged. The agent sent them to the Parador bar, where the ultra faction of the Atlético Front called Bastión met.
“As soon as we entered, a woman who worked at a kiosk alerted a colleague and told us to get out quickly, that the ultras were gathering there,” says Maider Gorostidi, who had come with her mother and other colleagues from the club. They began to leave discreetly, and the insults began: ‘Speak Spanish, daughter of a bitch!’, they shouted at me.” And then the beatings came, “due to the passivity of the Police.” “‘They are giving you what you deserve, sons of bitches,’ a police officer snapped at me,” adds Gorostidi, who is now a psychologist by profession and who was then a 20-year-old student.
In the middle of that collective attack, Aitor Zabaleta stayed behind, defending a 6-year-old boy and his mother who were being harassed by the neo-Nazis. Then, he was intercepted by a group of ultras, grabbed and one of them stabbed him in the chest. At the trial it was ruled that Ricardo Guerra Cuadrado was the only one convicted. Another of the suspects of having participated in the crime was Ignacio Racionero, acquitted at the time and arrested in 2018 for stabbing an Atlético de Madrid fan.
“The trial was a farce. The police officer who urged them to go to that bar did not even appear. It is assumed that they did not locate him, when we all know that it is very easy to know who was patrolling at that point and at that time. They only convicted Ricardo Guerra, but we know that several ultras participated,” adds Iker Zabaleta. The perpetrator was sentenced to 17 years. In 2012 he was caught putting drugs in prison after a permit and in 2018 he was arrested along with other Atlético ultras in Bruges.
The Movement against Intolerance, chaired by Esteban Ibarra, supported the popular accusation in the trials. Regarding the first, he questions that aggravating factors were not applied: “He was murdered for being Basque and from La Real, but since the aggravating factors due to sporting and territorial identity were not included in the penal code, they were not applied. It is something we still ask for.”
Regarding the second trial, Ibarra is very critical of the sentence: “It was the trial of Bastión, who carried out an attack in which 50 or 60 individuals participated. The Prosecutor’s Office dedicated itself to dismantling our request that they be convicted of illicit association, despite the fact that the head of the Police urban tribes brigade made it clear what Bastión was. He was only convicted of public disorder. None went to prison. Then I said that it was very cheap for them to kill, and today I maintain that.”
