Anti-Franco guerrilla fighter sues for 'moral reparations' over torture

One of the last surviving fighters from the guerrilla war waged against the Franco dictatorship in the 1940s is suing the Spanish government for €1m in reparations.

- Stephen Burgen

Barcelona-born Joan Busquets, 96, suffered torture, forced labour and 20 years in prison at the hands of the fascist regime.

The case comes in response to Spain's democratic memory law, passed in 2022, which offers "moral reparations" to Franco's victims.

"The law offers to help victims of torture, forced labour and exile under the dictatorship but the small print says they are not entitled to financial compensation," Busquets said. "It's symbolic, but my imprisonment wasn't symbolic."

After the fascist victory in the civil war in 1939, thousands of republicans fled to France, many of whom went on to fight with the French resistance, popularly known as the maquis, during the Nazi occupation.

At the end of the second world war a number of them returned to Spain where they established guerrilla groups - also called maquis.

Busquets, then 20, joined a group led by Marcel·li Massana in Berguedà in northern Catalonia, which smuggled arms and explosives over the Pyrenees on foot.