Almandoz is a locality in Navarre whose mine enters the investigation as a possible source of explosives. Its significance lies less in a described scene there than in the questions raised by the mine: who could access its materials, how tightly they were controlled, and what the owner might know.

The mine and the attempted grave explosion

Investigators believed that roughly two hundred grams of explosive used in an attempted cemetery blast might have come from material used in mining. They connected that possibility to the fact that the suspect’s family owned a mining site in Almandoz. The proposed link was a lead, not a proven route of supply: the available account does not establish that explosives were taken from the mine.

The controls in force made a straightforward theft less plausible. Since the 11-M attacks in Madrid, explosives were no longer kept in mine magazines. Material needed for each blast was transported for that occasion and guarded by the Guardia Civil and explosives-security personnel hired by the company; any surplus was recorded and destroyed on site. Investigators nevertheless considered whether the charge could have come from older stock, apparently withdrawn before those attacks and forgotten somewhere the suspect could reach. Its deteriorated condition was consistent with that possibility, but did not identify its origin.

The mine owner in the inquiry

The explosives question later brought the owner of the Almandoz mines into a separate investigative step. At the request of the Berrueta family’s lawyer, he was to give evidence in Elizondo rather than at a French police station. Iriarte was assigned to handle the appearance that morning. The change of venue placed the mine owner within the inquiry, but the account does not state what he testified or what conclusions followed.

Evidentiary significance

Almandoz functions as a point of possible access within a chain of circumstantial reasoning. The family’s ownership made the mine relevant to investigators, while the strict transport and disposal procedures complicated the theory that explosives had simply been stolen from it. The possibility of obsolete, poorly stored material kept the lead open without converting proximity or access into proof. The locality’s role is therefore defined by an unresolved question of supply rather than by a confirmed source.