The former vice president Eduardo Caceres Lehnhoffthe former chancellor Adolfo Molina Orantestwo Spanish diplomats, five ladies from the administrative staff of the embassy of Spaina visitor and 27 supposed peasants who had taken it hours before were charred to death yesterday, at 3:20 p.m., when three Molotov cocktail bombs carried by the invaders exploded.
Diplomats and embassy staff, including Jaime Ruiz del Arbol, secretary, perished. The Spanish ambassador, Mr. Máximo Cajal y López, miraculously escaped; Mr. Mario Aguirre Godoy, who had left a few minutes before the explosion, and the boy Jaimito Ruiz del Arbol, 6 years old, son of the unfortunate second secretary.
The events
A group of about 30 people, men and women, showed up yesterday, at 11 a.m., and took over the Spanish Embassy, located on 10th Street. 6-20 street, zone 9, and declared that all the people who were there at that time were being held hostage.
Attorneys Cáceres Lehnhoff and Molina Orantes and Dr. Aguirre Godoy had arrived at the embassy to visit the aforementioned diplomats, so they were also trapped. At around 11:15, police units arrived with uniformed and plainclothes officers, who with megaphones demanded the surrender of the occupants. About 40 minutes later, the Spanish ambassador used the occupiers’ loudspeakers to ask the security forces to withdraw as negotiations would begin.
The security forces did not heed the ambassador’s call. Numerous police officers began to enter the diplomatic headquarters, while the others pointed their weapons at the doors and windows of the headquarters. One of the occupants shouted that if the security forces did not withdraw, they were willing to go to the ultimate consequences and that they would die along with the hostages.
The police continued entering the headquarters. He located provisions, medicines and sweets that the invaders had brought. Likewise, the agents located six incendiary bombs, consisting of bottles with gasoline, rubber, wicks and “wipe”. Minutes passed, and around 2 p.m., before the astonished gaze of hundreds of curious onlookers, Dr. Mario Aguirre Godoy left the headquarters and was taken away in a vehicle.
At 3:20 p.m. two shots were heard and suddenly a column of smoke was observed coming out of a window of the embassy. Immediately the Spanish ambassador was seen appearing, with his face and hands burned, who had miraculously been able to escape. It was all screams, and a minute or two later everything was silent.
*Cover note of edition 8679.
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