Etarra refugees in Venezuela have requested in the National Court through lawyers from the Abertzale left the archiving of their pending cases after Dignity and Justice (DyJ) has asked Magistrate Francisco de Jorge, who is investigating the ETA’s “escape apparatus”to demand information from Caracas about 14 terrorists protected by Nicolás Maduro until their capture by the United States. According to the sources consulted by LA RAZÓN, the lawyers argue that the events that are the subject of these procedures – which according to those same sources amount to dozens of murders – are already statute-barred. What they seek is a free dismissal that, unlike the provisional dismissal, prevents reopening the case in the future for the same facts.
Among the ETA members who want the Spanish Justice to shelve their pending cases is Luis María Olaldewho joined ETA in 1978 as part of the “Urola commando” and would have participated, according to the Civil Guard, in several attacks.
The list of terrorists whom the association chaired by Daniel Portero wants the Court to track is headed by the bloodthirsty Iñaki De Juana Chaos –sentenced to more than 3,000 years in prison for 25 murders, of which he served 21 in prison–, and for Arturo Cubillas (although this is currently in our country). Investigated at the time for links between ETA and the FARC, all attempts to bring him to justice were unsuccessful.
By Juana Chaos and Cubillas
In addition to De Juana, Cubillas and Olalde, the prosecution wants the judge to investigate possible links with Eugenio Barrutiabengoa’s ETA “refugee collective”; the former leader of ETA and former member of the “Goierri commando” José Luis Eciolaza, “Dienteputo”, convicted of twenty attacks; Ángel María Lizarbe; José Ángel Uritz Zabaleta; Javier Arruti; Asunción Arana, Juan José Aristizábal; María Ángeles Artola, widow of ETA member José Miguel Beñarán, “Argala”; Manuel Asier Guridi; Jesús María Huerta and Ignacio Echevarría.
Why after so many years do these ETA refugees in Venezuela want to make sure to clear their terrorist past of pending cases? Legal sources have no doubt that they act this way out of fear that the National Court will end up demanding their delivery to Venezuela. Not in vain, if they were hypothetically extradited, they would also have to be held accountable for any proceedings that remain open against them or have been provisionally archived (which allows the case to be reopened if new criminal evidence emerges).
Although some sources point out that three lawyers who regularly defend ETA prisoners met a few days ago with the Prosecutor’s Office to try to obtain their support for these requests for dismissal due to an alleged statute of limitations, sources from the Prosecutor’s Office of the National Court headed by Jesús Alonso flatly deny this.
Maduro’s arrest
Dignity and Justice activated its request for information on these fourteen ETA members after the arrest of Maduro by the United States, in order to gauge the current Venezuelan president Delcy Rodríguez’s “predisposition to collaborate with Spain” in this matter. The lawyer of the victims’ association, Vanessa de Santiago, channeled this initiative – on which almost two months later the Prosecutor’s Office has not commented – within the framework of the investigation for integration into a terrorist organization of seven alleged members of ETA’s “escape apparatus.”
With Maduro, “unviable”
And it is that both with Hugo Chavez as with Nicolas Maduro in power, the accusation recalled, It was “unfeasible” to get these ETA members extradited to Spain, given the “protection” that the Bolivarian regime offered them (Cubillas became a senior official in the Ministry of Agriculture).
To the point that, DyJ admitted in the letter sent to De Jorge, advanced by this newspaper, this lack of collaboration and the passage of time has meant that in some cases the crimes have expired.
The Prosecutor’s Office has not commented
Pending the decision adopted by the investigator – and the position finally adopted by the Prosecutor’s Office – on whether or not to investigate the role that the ETA refugees in Venezuela may have played in the ETA “collective of escapees”, the National Court will now have to rule on these requests for dismissal.
Venezuela has been, the accusation recalled in its request to the judge that has put refugee terrorists on alert there for years, “one of the countries where one of the largest colonies of ETA members who have fled” is located to be safe from the action of the Spanish Justice. Thus avoiding, he stressed, “answering for crimes committed within the terrorist organization.”
But the information requested from the Bolivarian regime must even specify whether the 14 indicated by Dignity and Justice continue to reside in Venezuela, since the popular accusation itself pointed out that this list – which is partly based on a report from the Civil Guard dated September 2025 – only proves that they would be residing in Venezuela “as of April 4, 2025.”
The documentation of “El Pollo” Carvajal, key
Dignity and Justice intends for the National Court to collect from the United States all the information it has in its investigation into drug trafficking. former head of Military Intelligence of Venezuela Hugo Armando “El Pollo” Carvajalwho was extradited after being arrested in Spain in September 2021 after almost two years on the run from Justice.
Above all, the popular prosecution wants the judge to examine the documentation seized from Carvajal relating to the fourteen ETA members located in Venezuela. Documentation that specifies, for example, when they acquired refugee status when the Bolivarian regime granted them nationality. This happens, for example, in the case of Manuel Asier Guridiwho until he was arrested in 1992 in our country was part of a “talde” supporting the “Txantxi commando.” Sentenced to ten years in prison, he was released in 1997 and between 2001 and 2003 he was placed in Ekin and in the “logistics apparatus” of ETA. The documentation seized from the former head of Bolivarian Military Intelligence would indicate that it was in December 2021 when he was granted Venezuelan nationality.
The defense of the seven accused in the investigation of the “refugee collective” – with the former military ETA member Alfonso Etxegarai Atxirikaalias “Txema” or “Atxulo” at the head – has refused to let the instructor send a rogatory commission to the United States to claim all that documentation, as DyJ intends.
As they highlighted in their writing opposing the measures requested by the popular accusation, wielding “inconcrete documentation that would have been seized from Hugo Armando Carvajal” and a change of Government in Venezuela after the arrest of Maduro only pursues an “openly prospective” purpose.
Frontal opposition of those investigated
If agreeing to open that avenue of investigation, the lawyer warned, “the procedure would be paralyzed” and the right of those investigated to have the case processed “with all guarantees, within a reasonable period of time” would be violated.
For the accused, Dignity and Justice attempting to promote an investigation in search of criminal evidence is incompatible with the rule of law and the fundamental right to a process with all guarantees and a fair trial, which is why they asked the judge to oppose it.
The seven investigated for integration into ETA of the “refugee collective” do not want the National Court to follow the trail of the ETA members living in Venezuela. This is how he took it upon himself to demonstrate his defense by opposing the measures demanded by Dignity and Justice, which they consider “indeterminate and arbitrary” and, therefore, unnecessary. Some measures that they compared to “general inquisition prohibited in the legal system.” The 14 ETA members about whom the prosecution wants Venezuela to provide information, their lawyer complained, “are people investigated in the present procedure.”