Monbar Hotel attack

Monbar Hotel attack
Part of the Basque conflict
Monbar Hotel in 2007
Location	Bayonne, Pyrénées-Atlantiques, France
Coordinates	43°29′23″N 1°28′23″W / 43.489771°N 1.473178°W / 43.489771; -1.473178
Date	25 September 1985 2115 (UTC+1)
Target	ETA members
Attack type	Mass shooting, terror attack
Deaths	4
Injured	1
Perpetrators	GAL

The Monbar Hotel attack was carried out by the Grupos Antiterroristas de Liberación (GAL), a Spanish state-sponsored death squad,^[1][2] on 25 September 1985 in Bayonne, Pyrénées-Atlantiques, France. The targets were four members of the Basque separatist terrorist group Euskadi Ta Askatasuna (ETA), whom the Spanish government believed to be senior figures in the organization, itself proscribed as a terrorist group in Spain and France. All four people were killed, with a fifth person, apparently unconnected to ETA, injured in the shooting. This represented the deadliest attack carried out by the GAL. Although two of the participants were apprehended shortly after the shooting, controversy surrounded the possible involvement of senior figures in the Spanish police.

This attack, and similar attacks carried out by the GAL, became a major issue during the 1996 Spanish general election after a supreme court trial established that the Spanish Interior Ministry had provided clandestine funding for the GAL. Spanish Interior Minister José Barrionuevo and his security chief, Rafael Vera, were jailed for ten years for sanctioning a kidnapping and misappropriation of public funds to finance the group,^[3] and the GAL scandal is seen as a key factor in the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party (PSOE) losing the election,^[3][4] though more senior figures in the PSOE, such as Felipe Gonzalez, denied knowledge and involvement.^[3]