Clínica Tabese

Clínica Tabese was a private clinic in Las Rozas whose public reputation and adopted name became crucial clues in the investigation of Xabier Tabese. Its history led the investigators to identify the doctor behind the clinic as Xabier Markina, the father of Judge Markina, turning a search for a suspected cult leader’s professional background into a discovery about the judge’s family.

Location and reputation

The clinic operated in Las Rozas from the 1970s through the 1980s and until the mid-1990s. Known publicly as Clínica Tabese, it served wealthy clients and made its proprietor a familiar figure in Madrid society. His standing rested in part on innovative treatments imported from the United States; the medical association’s account describes him as prestigious and popular during the decades he practised.

The clinic’s name was not the doctor’s real surname. He adopted Tabese, the name of his clinic, for his medical practice. The distinction between the establishment’s public identity and its owner’s birth name would later explain why investigators initially struggled to find a match.

The doctor behind the name

The man known professionally as Doctor Tabese was Xabier Markina, a psychologist who had also practised medicine. After retiring from public life, he lived in Hondarribia, where he was buried after his death. The medical association could not confirm exactly when he died, but reported that he had been away from public life for some time.

That identity carried a personal consequence for the investigation: Xabier Markina was Judge Markina’s father. The discovery gave new significance to the judge’s earlier account of his father as a doctor who died after his wife’s repeated suicide attempts and prolonged psychiatric hospitalization. The clinic’s history thus joined the investigation’s search for Tabese’s background to the judge’s family history, without making the clinic itself a proven site of the crimes.

Investigative significance

The lead began with Elena Ochoa, who believed Tabese had training related to psychology. Amaia Salazar passed that possibility to her colleagues, asking them to search for him as a psychologist, psychiatrist, or doctor. The suggestion was a direction for inquiry, not yet a confirmed identity; the Madrid medical association’s records supplied the link by revealing the Clínica Tabese and its proprietor’s assumed professional name.

Once the team learned that the retired doctor had lived in Hondarribia, Amaia directed colleagues there to locate his death certificate, burial record, and grave, allowing for the possibility that official records might list either Xabier Tabese or Xabier Markina. The clinic therefore matters less as a scene of action than as an institutional trace: its name, reputation, and records exposed the man concealed behind Tabese and brought the investigation closer to the judge’s family connection.