Etxeberria Gabilondo, Francisco

Doctorate in Medicine from the University of the Basque Country (1991). Medical specialist in Legal and Forensic Medicine, and specialist in Forensic Anthropology and Biology at the Complutense University of Madrid. Master's degree in Medical Law from the Complutense University of Madrid.

At present, he is Senior Professor of Legal and Forensic Medicine at the Faculty of Medicine of the University of the Basque Country, where he has been teaching continuously since the 1983/84 academic year. Subdirector of the Basque Institute of Criminology at the University of the Basque Country since 2000, and professor of Legal Medicine at the Institute since the 1985/86 academic year.

Etxeberria is also President of the Aranzadi Science Society, which he joined back in 1973, taking part in excavations and speleological expeditions with José Miguel de Barandiaran and Jesús Altuna.

In 2000, he led the team of volunteers who carried out the first scientific exhumation in Spain, in Priaranza del Bierzo (León), which gave rise to the Association for the Recovery of Historical Memory. He leads the task force which was set up to investigate disappearances and mass graves from the Spanish Civil War. This group has collaborated with numerous historical memory associations on over a hundred exhumations in Spain, with Etxeberria becoming known as “the forensic specialist of historical memory" for his efforts. Furthermore, he is also a member of the committee of experts for the Chilean Government's Human Rights Commission, investigating disappearances which occurred during the dictatorship.

He has worked as an independent expert on numerous complex cases (such as the Lasa and Zabala case and the Bretón case) and on investigations into the murder of Víctor Jara, the suicide of Salvador Allende and the death of Pablo Neruda, as well as searching for and identifying historical figures such as the last king of Granada, Boabdil the Younger, in Morocco. He is currently coordinating the second stage of the project to find the remains of Cervantes at the Las Trinitarias convent in the Las Letras area of Madrid.

Etxeberria has won the Gipuzkoa Provincial Council Award for Human Rights (2006) and the René Cassin Award from the Basque Government (2007). He has also been presented with the Eusko Ikaskuntza-Laboral Kutxa Prize of Humanities, Culture, Arts and Social Sciences (2013).