Excerpts from ANARCHISTS IN THE SPANISH REVOLUTION by José Pierats #6

In June, 1896, in Barcelona, two bombs were thrown at a procession attended by the Captain General. There were several victims. As a result, hundreds of prisoners, many brought on foot from the countryside, were crowded into the dungeons of the notorious Barcelona fortress of Montjuich. Among them were Anselmo Lorenzo, Tarrida de Mármol, Teresa Claramunt, Federico Urales and José Llunas.

Commander Enrique Marzo was in charge of the case, and a lieutenant of the Civil Guard, Narciso Portas, conducted the interrogations. On his orders hired thugs tried to obtain confessions from the prisoners, who were whipped into running for hours at a time until they dropped from exhaustion. They were also prevented from sleeping and given dry cod instead of water. In desperation they came to drink their own urine. Their testicles were twisted, and glowing irons were inserted under their fingernails and toenails. These tortures took place deep inside the fortress.

By the end of September the executioners had chosen their victims. Five of them, Aschery, Más, Nogués, Molas, and Alsina, were condemned to death and executed inside the castle. Twenty-two others were given maximum penalties (they too were freed by international pressure in the spring of 1900) and the rest were banished from the country. During the trial the climate of international opinion changed to the extent that those exiled were given asylum in England. Fernando Tarrida de Mhrmol, an anarchist professor in the Barcelona Politechnical Atheneum, who, because of his intellectual reputation and his wealthy family, had been released in the first phase of the investigation, roused the international community with a powerful book denouncing the trial.

Influenced by these reports, Miguele Angiolillo, an Italian anarchist, left London for Spain in August, 1897 with the express purpose of assassinating the Prime Minister, Chnovas del Castillo. Angiolillo was executed on August 20, 1897. The following month, a Spanish anarchist named Sempau tried in vain to attack Portas, the interrogator.