Sunday Mirror (Northern Ireland)
SISTER’S PAIN OVER
THEY both have piercing eyes, a passion for fashion and a lust for lovers... and blood.
One is fictional – Villanelle, the female assassin played by Jodie Comer in hit TV series Killing Eve.
The other is Idoia López Riaño – once Spain’s most-wanted killer and the inspiration for Villanelle.
Like the TV character, Riaño was obsessed with her image and was nicknamed La Tigresa – The Tigress – for her sexual prowess.
As part of Basque terrorist group ETA, she was behind 23 murders, including at least 17 paramilitary police, and served 23 years in jail.
British author Luke Jennings wrote Codename Villanelle – which inspired Killing Eve – after reading about Riaño.
PAIN
He said: “She was clearly a psychopath and completely, completely without empathy.”
And today, the sister of Riaño’s second victim relives her pain and tells how the murderer, then aged just
20, toasted his death with champagne.
Tugboat worker Ángel Manuel Facal Soto, 42, was shot as he ate a sandwich in the streets of Pasajes, near San Sebastian, in 1985.
Speaking exclusively to the Sunday Mirror, Carmen Facal said: “Riaño was much more bloodthirsty than the typical ETA terrorist. I’m sure Angel’s murder wasn’t something she was ordered to do but decided to do off her own bat to make a name for herself.
“After that woman and her accomplice killed Angel, the police told me they drove a mile down the road to a bar and celebrated it with champagne with their cohorts.”
Mum-of-two Carmen believes Luke was right to base his villain on Riaño, who was freed in 2017.
She goes on: “Mr Jennings has got it spot-on. I can understand the success of shows like Killing Eve. They’re entertaining and the sort of thing you can easily get hooked on.
“The vast majority of people can switch these programmes on and off with the push of a button because it’s just fiction. I was one of those who suffered at the hands of a bloodthirsty real-life psychopath.
“I’ve forgiven her because I wanted to live in peace and living with hate is not living. But I haven’t forgotten what she did.”
Riaño tried to justify Angel’s murder by falsely claiming he was a drug trafficker and police informant who “deserved what he got”.
Carmen admitted: “Angel was a drug addict but he was never a drug trafficker.
“He had worked for the family tug firm and everyone knew him in the port area of the town where he was killed. He was a bohemian and a good talker.”
Another of her brothers succumbed to cancer just 15 days before Angel’s murder. Carmen, who is married to Spanish racing driver Andres Vilarino, said: “They were very painful times in my life.” Riaño, the daughter of a carpenter, was a teenager when recruited by separatist group
ETA. Its bloody campaign for independence in northern Spain and south-west France raged for 40 years, claiming 800 lives and wounding thousands. ETA declared a permanent ceasefire in 2011.
Riaño was in the so-called Oker commando unit when she killed Carmen’s brother but was with the notorious Madrid unit when it killed 12 police officers in a car bomb in the Spanish capital in July 1986.
Like Villanelle, who has a sexually charged obsession with ex-MI6 agent Eve Polastri, Riaño had a reputation for sleeping with police
TV series is spot-on. The difference is I suffered at hands of a real pyscho
SISTER OF ASSASSIN’S VICTIM