Antoni Asunción

Antoni Asunción Hernández (12 July 1951 – 5 March 2016) was a Spanish politician of the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party (PSOE). He was Minister of Interior between 1993 and 1994. He also served as member of the Congress of Deputies during the V Legislature (1993–1996).

Career

Asunción was born on 12 July 1951 in Manises. He started his political career as alcalde (mayor) of his hometown in the 1970s. He was elected in the 1979 and 1983 municipal elections. He subsequently became Deputation President of Valencia. In 1988 he was named Director General of the Penitentiary Institutions under Justice Minister Enrique Múgica Herzog. During his period as director he was one of the main designers of the dispersion policy of ETA prisoners. To establish the policy which tried to break ETA prisoner discipline he also worked with the leader of the Basque Nationalist Party, Xabier Arzalluz.

In the 1993 general elections Asunción obtained a seat in the Congress of Deputies for the Electoral District of Valencia, he would serve until 1996. In 1994 he became Minister of Interior in the government of PSOE Prime Minister Felipe González. During this time Luis Roldán, former Director of the Guardia Civil, was accused of corruption. Asunción promised that Roldán would be persecuted, and that he would not be able to leave country. When Roldán fled the country Asunción, having been in office for five months, offered his resignation to González, who refused. Asunción then stated that he would just stop coming into work and González subsequently accepted.

In the 1999 provincial elections Asunción was elected to the Corts Valencianes. He tried to become President of the Valencian Government but lost out to Eduardo Zaplana of the People's Party. Several months later he left the Corts, having served between 13 June and 20 September.