Miquel Badia i Capell

Miquel Badia i Capell (10 March 1906 – 28 April 1936) was a prominent Catalan politician and militant of the separatist party Estat Català during the period of the Second Spanish Republic. He served as Chief of Public Order of the Generalitat of Catalonia and was one of the organizers of the revolutionary events known as the Events of 6 October 1934.

Badia was also a member of the JERC. Among his followers, he was famously nicknamed (Captain Balls).

Youth Born into a peasant family,

Political activity during the Second Spanish Republic After the proclamation of the Second Spanish Republic in 1931, Badia was appointed head of the Republican Left Youth–Estat Català (JEREC).

In September 1934, police under Badia's orders entered the courtroom of the Barcelona Palace of Justice during the disobedience trial against lawyer Josep Maria Xammar, a personal friend of Badia, and arrested prosecutor Manuel Sancho. Following the incident, Badia was forced to resign (see Procés Xammar).

He was one of the organizers of the revolutionary day of 6 October 1934. Because of these events, he had to go into exile until 1936 probably in retaliation for the campaign he had led against their illegal activities while serving as Chief of Services of the General Commissariat of Public Order (CGOP).

The assassination occurred at 3:30 pm in front of number 38 Muntaner Street. The two brothers were leaving their residence (number 52) and crossed paths with two individuals who shot Miquel once in the back and, when he turned around, twice more in the chest and abdomen. The second individual fired a single shot to the face of Josep, who died a few minutes later. The gunmen immediately fled in a car waiting across the street.

Hypothesis about FAI and Falangist involvement Regarding the authorship of the assassination, the most likely hypothesis is that the perpetrators were gunmen from the FAI, as the getaway car was commonly used by members of this organization to carry out sabotage on trams and buses. One of the regular drivers was the known gunman Justo Bueno Pérez, who was identified as the driver of the vehicle on that very day. Additionally, both the owner of the car and the owner of the garage where it was kept were also members.

A second, less credible possibility considered was that the gunmen belonged to the Juventudes Antimarxistas, since a group led by a former police officer, Juan Segura Nieto, had recently been acquiring pistols and meeting in places close to the Badia residence. In fact, the resemblance between Segura and the FAI gunman Bueno was extraordinary, and witnesses often confused them.

The alibis of the probable assassins could not be disproved, and the frequent presence of the suspected FAI members at the garage was not sufficient evidence. Moreover, the sabotage acts committed during the last transport strike, which they had admitted to, could not be sanctioned because they had been amnestied by the republican government. Therefore, the new judge of the case, Márquez Caballero, ended up releasing them all.