Francisco Larrañaga’s life has been in the headlines for years. Son of a former Basque player, Manuel Larrañaga and a Filipino mother, Margarita González, He was arrested more than two decades ago and spent two of them on death row. He was charged with murder and rape in the Philippines and sentenced to death by lethal injection, until his sentence was commuted to life imprisonment. In 2009, he was transferred to a prison in the Basque Country.
Francisco Larrañaga upon his arrival in Madrid
Later, they granted him a second prison degree that allowed him to train or work. But during all this time, his case was not without controversy. And over the years, the film “Give Up Tomorrow” was made based on this incident and in which it is indicated that the plot was a plot against him. Today, the National Court granted him conditional release, according to sources interviewed by Europa Press.
His story begins in 1997, when several police officers showed up at the hotel school in Manila, Philippines, where he was studying. They accused him of murdering, raping and kidnapping two sisters from a well-to-do family. The police consulted a list of young people convicted of minor crimes and found his name. Years ago, Larrañaga was involved in a fight outside his school.
He was 19 when he was charged with the crime, along with seven other men, and interned in New Bilibid Prison, the largest prison in Southeast Asia. The process that followed, according to the defense, was “riddled with irregularities.” Larrañaga, who spent half his life in prison, has always defended his innocence.
The keys to the Francisco Larrañaga case
According to the case documents, the events occurred May 16, 1997when eight suspects stopped their car in front of a bus stop where the girls were. The Chiong sisters, aged 19 and 21, were forced into the attackers’ car. Authorities called the events an “orgy of humiliation.”
They forced one of them to dance and tore off her clothes to rape her. Then they got rid of the body by throwing it into a ravine. While the second sister was also raped and her body disappeared without a trace. The brutality of the events pushed public opinion to insist that the attackers be punished with a severe sentence.
The charge was based on the testimony of David Valiente Russiaa criminal who claimed to have participated in the kidnapping, but not the murder. Valiente was granted immunity for naming the culprits.
Larrañaga claimed during the trial that he was on the island of Luzon, 300 kilometers from the island of Cebu, where the incident occurred. Larrañaga’s defense team came forward 35 lists of witnesses and passengers airlines that operated the route between the two islands to prove that Larrañaga was not present at the scene of the incident. But the investigating judge considered that the accused could have flown on a private plane. Airports reported that the flight did not take place.
Florencio Omaña Villarín, former regional director of the NBI, which is the equivalent of the Philippine FBI, went so far as to point out that his investigations revealed a group of drug traffickersAt the same time, the defense stressed that DNA tests had not been carried out on the only body found.
Larrañaga was sentenced to two life sentencesHowever, the Supreme Court of the Philippines, after reviewing the decision, commuted one of the sentences to death. Until the Philippines abolished the death penalty in 2006. In May 2007, Spain signed an agreement with the Philippines on the transfer of convicts, which came into force at the end of 2007.
Larrañaga, while on death row, even told XLSemanal that he tried to escape. “I was looking for reasons to live and think about the people who love you and support you. “I always said that I was not afraid of death, because I knew that I was going to meet the Creator because I was innocent, but I was hurt by what my family was going to suffer,” he stressed.
And when the Vocento editorial team asked him in 2021 What was I going to do when I was completely free, he replied.: “I want to do the Camino de Santiago. I would like to do it alone, to be able to walk during the day, at night, to think. I still have the shirt I wore on July 16, 1997, when the crimes were committed hundreds of kilometers from where I was. “I want to burn it when I get to Santiago.” Currently, despite his parole, Larrañaga is not going to finish serving his sentence. until September 28, 2034.
