Manuel Carrasco Formiguera

[2] His funeral in Paris on 27 April 1938 was attended by many notable people, including Joan Miró, Ossorio y Gallardo, Josep M. de Sagarra, Joaquim Ventalló and Jacques Maritain and his wife Raissa.

[5] Carrasco was noted for his strong nationalism but also for his rejection of all forms of violence and for his faith in the course of the law, a position that separated him from others with the same objectives he had, who nevertheless prepared for armed struggle, such as Francesc Macià, founder of Estat Català.

[8] In 1932 he was expelled from Acció Catalana with other members of the Catholic sector and joined the Unió Democrática de Catalunya (Democratic Union of Catalonia), which had been created shortly before.

He then decided to leave again, as a representative of the Catalan Generalitat with the Government of Euskadi, with his family, and embarked at Bayonne on board the Galdames, set for Bilbao.

However, the freighter on which he was sailing was intercepted by the Francoist cruiser Canarias (Battle of Cape Machichaco) and Carrasco was taken to Pasajes, where his family was broken up.

Carrasco was accompanied in his final hours by Father Ignacio Romana, an intimate friend since they had been fellow pupils in infant school, then at the bachillerato of the Jesuits college in the calle Caspe, and after that at the Faculty of Law of Barcelona University.

He wrote two letters, one to his wife Pilar, and another to the President of the Generalitat de Catalunya, Lluís Companys, asking that his execution not become a pretext for reprisals.

Carrasco, who had declined a bandage over his eyes, declared: "The motto that has been mine for my whole life and which I carry in my heart, I now wish to shout aloud at this transcendental moment, Visca Catalunya lliure!

[14] According to various authors,[15] Carrasco's execution was personally ordered by Franco, in response to the protests of several foreign governments, including the Vatican, against Franco's aerial bombing of civilian targets, and particularly the Italian air raids on Barcelona during 17–20 March 1938, publicly condemned by the Holy See through an informal note published on 24 March in L'Osservatore Romano.

[16] On 25 September 2005 the Spanish Congress of Deputies agreed on a proposal from Convergence and Union, to nullify the court martial that Carrasco had been subjected to.