Public Prosecutor seeks up to 19 years in prison for explosive attack on PSOE headquarters in Santander
Two far-right activists linked to Falange fabricated homemade devices and placed them in a lecture with more than 50 attendees in 2025. Nobody was injured thanks to the swift action of one attendee.
Two accused with ties to Falange face nearly 20 years in prison for the Santander attack
The Public Prosecutor's Office is seeking sentences of up to 19 years in prison for two men accused of placing homemade explosives at the PSOE headquarters in Santander on 25 April 2025, according to El País. The attack occurred while the premises was hosting a lecture on democratic memory attended by more than fifty people, including local, regional and national authorities.
The two defendants, Miguel Toribio and René Odriozola, acted driven, according to the written indictment by the chief public prosecutor of the community, Jesús Dacio Arteaga, "by radical ideologies contrary to democratic coexistence and, in any case, contrary to the political and democratic option defended by the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party". The investigation has linked both to Falange; one of them is the son of a PP (People's Party) mayor of a municipality in Cantabria.
MacGyver cocktails fabricated minutes before the attack
The public ministry details that Odriozola entered the socialist headquarters hooded at around 19:15 hours carrying two devices that he and Toribio had constructed shortly beforehand. The devices—termed in the indictment "MacGyver cocktails"—consisted of two bottles of 1.5 and 6 litres filled with a mixture of metallic aluminium and hydrochloric acid. A Scientific Police report warns that the reaction between both components generates aluminium trichloride and hydrogen gas, capable of bursting a hermetically sealed container.
Odriozola placed the devices behind a chair in the back row of the room, occupied by a woman, and fled the premises. The immediate intervention of another attendee prevented a tragedy: she grabbed the bottles and took them outside, where they exploded seconds later. No one suffered physical injuries, although the woman who removed the devices subsequently developed psychological trauma and required medical treatment.
Authorities and senior officials among those present
Among those attending the lecture were several councillors, Pedro Casares—then a deputy and current Government delegate in Cantabria—and Zoraida Hijosa, director general of Support for Victims at the Ministry of Territorial Policy and Democratic Memory. The Public Prosecutor's Office emphasises that placing the devices at the entrance of the room, in an enclosed space with high public attendance, could have "substantially increased the capacity to cause physical harm to a greater number of people" and impeded a possible evacuation "combined with the expected collective panic".
In one of the bottles, the attackers introduced a note with the text: "Against revanchist lies, PSOE Satan". The PSOE, which is also bringing charges, states that the message was "conceived to be found and distributed following the action".
Four offences and restraining order
The public ministry charges both defendants with four offences: manufacturing explosives, obstructing the right of assembly through violence, assault on authority, and injury. For Odriozola it seeks 19 years in prison; for Toribio, 17 years and 10 months. In addition, it requests that both be prohibited from approaching within 300 metres of the PSOE headquarters for five years. The socialist party itself has separately requested a sentence of 14 years and 9 months in prison for each.
Source: El País