He was killed by the Spanish government's death squad, the Grupos Antiterroristas de Liberación (GAL), in one of its highest-profile acts.

Broaurd was shot by GAL gunmen Luis Morcillo and Rafael López Ocaña as he left his paediatric clinic in Bilbao.

He was sent to prison in 1983 together with other Herri Batasuna members accused of singing the Basque fighters' song Eusko Gudariak when the Spanish King Juan Carlos I went to Gernika.

Santi Brouard had been warned that right-wing Spanish paramilitary groups had targeted him, but he said he would not flee and that he would not lock his office door because of it.

[2] The police investigation identified and accused Morcillo and López Ocaña of killing Brouard, but a judge in the Audiencia Nacional of Spain released them from prison in 1999.