Pascual Fresquet Llopis

Pascual Fresquet Llopis was born in 1907 in Alcalà de Xivert. As a child his family emigrated to La Torrassa, in L'Hospitalet de Llobregat district, which was made up of a working population that was mostly affiliated with the CNT. His parents worked on the Barcelona Metro works and his mother, Purificación Llopis, ran an inn on Carrer Sugranyes. Fresquet was the president of the CNT construction union in the Sants neighborhood in 1936,[1] but he was linked to the libertarian movement since before the outbreak of the War when he was often arrested and tortured by the police, on charges of gunfire and robbery.

Fresquet was a lover of drinking and boxing, being an aggressive person. He was feared even by anarchists and trade unionists. Regarding his sexual behavior, promiscuous and humiliating with women, some graphological studies indicate that he had great internal conflicts, especially of a sexual nature; that he denied his sexuality and that he could have been homosexual.

With the outbreak of the war, he came to command the Brigade of Death, a unit linked to the FAI that was responsible for more than 200 murders between July and September 1936.[2] He justified the executions of fascists, Catholics and people who deviated from the ideals of libertarian communism on the balcony of the municipality where those executions took place. After the Civil War, Fresquet went into exile in Marseilles, where he robbed banks with a colleague from the Death Brigade. He died of natural causes in 1957 in a residence called Castel Roseraie, assisted by a chaplain.

• Orensanz, Toni. "La Brigada de la Muerte" (in Spanish) (70). Barcelona: Sàpiens. p. 32.
• Orensanz, Toni (2008). L'òmnibus de la mort: parada Falset (in Catalan). Barcelona: Ara Llibres.