The three leaders of GRAPO who were apprehended in Reus (Tarragona) are to be brought before the High Court.

GRAPO (Grupo de Resistencia Antifacista de Octobre) is the military wing of the Spanish Communist Party. It was formed after the death of Franco with the aims of overthrowing the Spanish Government and replacing it with a Marxist Leninist regime.

It is very poorly supported in Spain and is only a minor threat compared to ETA. It is included within the EU list of terrorist organisations. The normal Modus Operandi of GRAPO is one of Robbery for finance and assassination.

The members of the band preparing to come to court are Juan Garcia Martin, his girlfriend Carmen Cayetano Navarro and another woman Maria A Diaz Villar.

 Garcia is being held for killing the proprietor of a Employment Agency business in Zaragoza four months ago and wounding his wife.

The accused were identified as members of Grapo. Juan G Martin was head of GRAPO and mastermind and was sentences in 1978 by the high court to 137 years in jail for  murdering three people, among others the director general of prisons, Jesus Hadd.

He was released in 1998 after being in Jail for 20 years in Seville. Baltasar Garzon, the investigator has had two years in the operation in Spain and France against GRAPO in Madrid, Vitoria and Paris. Besides the murder of a woman in Zaragoza the police linked Martin with an intention to attack a branch office last March with the result that the director was injured.