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The Widow and the Murderer, a friendship born of tragedy, by Giles Tremlet.

Juan Marijaurigi normally slept soundly, but on the night of the 28th of July 2000,

he was disturbed by a nightmare. I dreamed they killed me. He told his wife the next morning,

as he left his house in the village of Ligorreta in Spain's verdant past country to meet a friend

for coffee. She told him not to worry. It was just a dream.

Juan Marijaurigi was a big man, six-foot tall and 16-stone, with a voice and personality to match.

He was 48 and between September 1994 and May 1996, he had been civil governor of Giputhkwa,

his wealthy home province, which lies in the north of Spain, on the border with France.

If he was in the room, you knew he was there, not just because of his size,

says Chavier Maitha, a fellow local politician from the socialist party.

The nightmare was not hard to explain. Although Chavrigi was passionate about his

past identity and delivered speeches in the ancient local language of Raoskara,

he made no secret of his antipathy to the violent terrorist group Eta, which had been

pressing for Basque independence since 1959. Chavrigi had lost friends and colleagues to Eta

assassinations some recently. Chavrigi was a man of principle. During the dictatorship of General

Franco, he had been a clandestine activist, peacefully campaigning for Basque independence.

After Franco's death in 1975, when Spain embraced democracy and Basque's

...