The First Instance Court of Elda (Alicante) postponed until 4 February 2026 the statements of the former minister and former vice-president of the Government Rodolfo Martín Villa and the Armed Police officer Daniel Aroca del Rey, investigated for the murder of the 20-year-old young man Teófilo del Valle, which occurred in the city of Alicante on 24 February 1976, making him the first fatal victim of the Transition. The suspension is due to “logistical problems in the courts of Albacete and Madrid” from which both appeared electronically, according to sources from the State Coordinator of Support for Complaints Argentina (Ceaqua), a platform that supported José Antonio del Valle, brother of the victim and complainant in the proceedings.
The same sources also announced that the judge rejected the appeal presented a few months ago by Martín Villa, 91, against the order that admitted the complaint to treatment. The appeal of the person who at the time of the events was Minister of Labor Relations of the Arias Navarro Government obtained an unfavorable report from the delegated prosecutor for Human Rights and Democratic Memory of the Provincial Prosecutor’s Office of Alicante, Óscar Presa, according to Ceaqua.
Teófilo del Valle operated in the footwear leather sector in Elda, one of the main footwear centers in the province of Alicante, together with Elche and Villena. Shortly before midnight, during a march demanding better working conditions and a collective agreement for his union, he was cornered by officers of the Armed Police, greyand riddled with bullets in the back. He died within minutes. According to subsequent research, reflected in the documentary The three deaths of Teófilo del Valle, carried out by Manuel de Juan, it was Martín Villa who sent the grays to repress the protests of the Eldense shoe manufacturers. And Aroca, who fired the bullets that ended the young protester’s life. Aroca, in fact, was tried by a military tribunal in a court martial which ultimately acquitted him, because he was deemed to have acted “in the performance of duty”.
In Spain, 115 complaints have been filed for crimes against humanity committed during the Franco regime and the Transition. But the Del Valle family’s case is the first to be admitted to court and is currently under investigation. Martín Villa’s statement will be the first from someone involved in the repression of the dictatorship before and after the death of Franco and the accession to the throne of Juan Carlos I. According to Ceaqua, a platform composed of several associations fighting against the impunity of the Regime, protected by the amnesty law of 1977, from November 1975 to 1982, the different police forces caused 132 violent deaths. From Ceaqua they are confident that the “criminal case” against the former minister and the former policeman “continues to advance” and that the investigations continue “with the aim of establishing a judicial truth and ascertaining the corresponding criminal responsibilities”.
