The cremation took place yesterday in San Sebastian of Juan Maria Jauregui, the former civil governor of Guipuzcoa who was murdered in the nearby town of Tolosa on Saturday.
Earlier in the day a simple civil ceremony had been held in his home town of Legorreta, 5 km from Tolosa, when the majority of the town's 1,400 inhabitants joined his widow, Ms Marixabel Lasa, their daughter Maria (19) and national and Basque politicians.
Mr Jauregui (49) was shot as he was sitting in a local cafe with a friend.
Eyewitnesses talk of the cold and calculating manner of the two gunmen, almost certainly members of ETA, who waited at the bar for half an hour before paying for their drinks, walking towards the door and firing two bullets into their victim's head as they reached his table. He was declared dead an hour later.
The terrorists later blew up their getaway car on an isolated road 5 km outside Tolosa to guard their identities.
Mr Jauregui was imprisoned in 1972 for political offences during the Franco dictatorship. He served as civil governor from 1994 to 1996 under the Socialist government of Mr Felipe Gonzalez and was outspoken in his stand against terrorism.
He also initiated the investigation into the state's own "dirty war" against terrorists.
He had been a known ETA target since 1995, when a plot to blow up his official car was foiled with the arrest of two terrorists, and a second plot was aborted when his name appeared on documents found in a raid on a terrorist hideout.
Three years ago Mr Jauregui exiled himself to Chile where he was employed as Latin American director of the Spanish company, Aldeasa, which runs airport shops.
He had returned to his hometown for a two-week holiday and to celebrate his silver wedding last week. Ten days ago threatening graffiti was painted on the wall of his house, but he refused to take security measures.
Mr Jauregui is the seventh person to be killed by ETA since it called off a 14-month ceasefire at the beginning of this year.
His close friend, the journalist Jose Luis Lopez Lacalle, was shot by terrorists last May.
ETA has stepped up its campaign of violence during the past month and carried out 10 attacks in July, killing two men.
On Friday, police announced they had foiled another planned murder, of Mr Jose Atares, the Popular Party mayor of Zaragoza, when they arrested two men and discovered an ETA hideout.
The mood in the Basque region is growing increasingly pessimistic. A poll carried out by the University of the Basque Country and published at the weekend showed that 15 per cent of those questioned admitted they would like to move away to find work in another part of the country. Seventy per cent of those questioned said that they would be afraid to become involved in politics and were reluctant to discuss politics even in private.
For Mr Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, the new leader of the Socialist party, it was his first public appearance since taking office over a week ago.
"We are in a dark tunnel, and it is up to them to show us a light at the end of it," he said. Jauregui's widow and daughter led several thousand protestors in a march yesterday evening through San Sebastian.
Demonstrators walked in silence behind a banner which read: "Enough is Enough, ETA, No!" Other anti-ETA marches were held across Spain, including Madrid, Barcelona, Seville, Valencia and Pamplona.