Another local councillor for the Spanish governing party was killed yesterday in a shooting attributed to the Basque separatist organisation ETA.
Mr Manuel Indiano Azaustro (29), Popular Party (PP) councillor in the Basque town of Zumarraga, near San Sebastian, was shot as he opened the sweetshop he ran with his sister in the town centre. He received 12 bullet wounds and died shortly after reaching hospital.
Mr Indiano was engaged to be married and his girlfriend, who is seven months pregnant, collapsed on hearing the news and was admitted to the same hospital as her fiance.
On arriving at the hospital to offer condolences, Ms Maria San Gil, PP president for Guipuzcoa said: "There is an unborn baby in this hospital who will be born without a father and will never know him."
Mr Indiano took his seat in the town council last March. In April he asked for a private security guard to be withdrawn as he said he had never received threats or felt at risk.
Mr Indiano is the 10th Popular Party politician to be killed since Gregorio Ordonez, the PP candidate for mayor of San Sebastian, was shot in January 1995.
Sixteen people have been killed in ETA attacks, including four terrorists blown up by their own car-bomb, since the organisation ended a 14-month ceasefire in January.
The Spanish Prime Minister, Mr Jose Maria Aznar, was in the Polish town of Gdansk for ceremonies marking the 20th anniversary of the Solidarity movement, when the news of the latest killing came through.
Television cameras showed Mr Aznar being handed a small sheet of paper and reading it several times. "Manuel died for his belief in human rights, in democracy and liberty and his only crime was to defend those ideas," he said later. He flew back to Madrid almost immediately.
The condemnation of the latest killing has been widespread. The Basque First Minister, Mr Juan Jose Ibarretxe, described the killing as an act of supreme cowardice.