On September 9, 1985, Euskadi Ta Askatasuna “Comando Madrid” cell detonated a car bomb in Madrid, Spain, killing Eugene Kenneth Brown, a 45-year-old Johnson & Johnson executive from New Jersey. He remains the only American killed by the Basque separatist terrorist group, which murdered nearly 850 people between 1968 and 2011 — among them more than 340 civilians and hundreds of Spanish law enforcement officers. Nearly four decades later, 379 ETA cases remain unresolved.
Nonetheless, Spanish judicial authorities — not the current leftist national government — have now formally decided to demand the return of 14 ETA fugitives long protected by Venezuela’s Chavista regime.
In the 1980s and 1990s, ETA evolved from bombs and assassinations into political infiltration. Former Socialist Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero — recently charged with belonging to a criminal organization — later dressed that strategy in the language of “political dialogue.” In practice, it helped rehabilitate convicted terrorists and launder bloodstained records into parliamentary respectability. Arnaldo Otegi, who served prison time for his leadership roles in ETA, now leads EH Bildu. Today, Bildu’s votes keep Pedro Sanchez’s minority socialist government alive. Therefore, Madrid’s government survives with help from the political heirs of the terrorist group that deliberately murdered an American citizen.
Venezuela’s sanctuary makes the scandal worse. For years, Caracas has sheltered ETA fugitives alongside Cuba and other leftist dictatorships, exporting impunity while undermining Western counterterrorism norms. Yet Sanchez’s government is weakening the very instruments needed to confront that network. In 2022, Interior Minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska dissolved OCON-Sur, the Spanish Civil Guard’s 150-agent anti-narcotics elite unit that operated in the Strait of Gibraltar. Before its suppression, the unit had seized more than 1,400 tons of drugs and arrested over 10,000 suspects tied to Venezuelan and FARC-linked trafficking networks. That decision — despite internal objections-benefited the narco-terror ecosystem connected to the same regime now harboring ETA killers and their political descendants. ETA’s historical ties to FARC, including years of joint training, make the pattern harder to dismiss.
Meanwhile, Sanchez is also advancing plans to merge Spain’s military and civilian intelligence services. That is not modernization. It is a direct assault on independent institutions that previously helped expose ETA-Venezuela-FARC connections. Centralizing intelligence under political control would weaken watchdogs, shield coalition partners with terrorist pedigrees, and move Madrid away from the intelligence-driven counterterrorism model that America has long championed. As Venezuela’s Delcy Rodriguez decides whether to break permanently from the Caracas-Tehran axis or preserve Chavismo under new management, Spain is also choosing between political convenience and strategic clarity.
IRAN’S IRAQI KILLER SITS IN AN AMERICAN CELL. TRUMP MUST SANCTION BAGHDAD IF IT SHIELDS THE OTHERS
Washington should treat this as more than a Spanish problem. Spain’s leftist government is openly hostile to America’s strong leadership while weakening tools that once made it a reliable security partner. The United States has leverage, especially as Venezuela stumbles through its own “1975 Spanish Transition”-like process. Any expansive future diplomatic engagement, sanctions relief, or economic opening with Caracas should be conditioned on the immediate extradition of the 14 ETA fugitives to face Spanish justice.
Congress should also hold hearings on the 379 unresolved ETA cases and Venezuela’s role as a terrorist safe haven. Direct public pressure on figures such as Delcy Rodriguez would make clear that sheltering the killers of Americans carries consequences. Allowing these fugitives to remain protected in Caracas while Madrid dismantles its defenses rewards impunity, strengthens America’s adversaries, and signals that terrorist safe havens are cost-free. Genuine progress in Venezuela must continue with the return of the men who belonged to the terrorist gang that murdered Americans. That standard should be nonnegotiable for any government seeking serious American patience, legitimacy, or relief. Justice for our citizens is unfinished American business.
Jose Lev Alvarez is an American–Israeli scholar specializing in international security policy. A multilingual veteran of the IDF special forces and the U.S. Army, he holds three master’s degrees, a medical degree, and is completing a Ph.D. in Intelligence and Global Security in the Washington, D.C., area.