The legislative reform that accelerates the release of almost fifty historical ETA members – which the Government has carried out through an amendment that has gone unnoticed by the opposition – has been a hard blow for the lawyers who have spent half their lives working in the Court. National in defense of the victims of the terrorist group. The transposition into Spanish law of a framework decision on the exchange between the states of the European Union of criminal record information took place almost a decade ago – and was endorsed by both the Supreme Court and the Constitutional Court and the Court itself. European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) -, but until now it stopped the recognition of the sentences served in France by the ETA members convicted before 2010, which prevented the acceleration of the release of historical members of the criminal gang, including Javier García Gaztelu, “Txapote” – convicted, among others, of the murder of Miguel Ángel Blanco–; María Soledad Iparraguirre, “Anboto”; José Javier Arizkuren Ruiz, “Kantauri”; and Félix Alberto López de Lacalle, “Mobutu.” However, the repeal of that amendment that served as a dam to advance their release from prison will now make these premature releases a reality, once the time they spent in French prisons has been reduced from the legal limit of 30 years, one of the historical demands of the terrorists and the pro-ETA environment.
The reform, whose consequences for the former members of ETA neither PP nor Vox were able to guess, has sown unease among the victims’ lawyers after intense legal work for many years in defense of the memory and dignity of those who suffered first-hand the tear of terrorism. LA RAZÓN has contacted some of them to gather their impressions about a legal modification that they do not consider to be inevitable and that, they admit, has meant “a bucket of cold water” for them, as they noted that some terrorists will find “almost free” or “half the price” of the terrorist acts for which they have been convicted in Spain. “Anboto” is the most paradigmatic case, as she remained imprisoned in the neighboring country for more than 15 years before being handed over to our country in 2019.
Antonio Guerrero, lawyer of the Victims of Terrorism Association (AVT)assures that the reform causes him “a lot of discomfort” and the feeling that it involves “a lot of work and wasted time.” The lawyer describes the legal modification as “rude.” «I don’t see a legal aspect that justifies it. It is argued that it must be adapted to European law, but the framework decision was adopted many years ago and has already been adapted to national law with the exception of rulings prior to 2010,” he points out. After recalling that this interpretation was supported by the Supreme Court, the Constitutional Court and the ECtHR, Guerrero emphasizes that in Spain the terrorists were convicted “for facts different from those that motivated their convictions in France, where they were tried only by association of evildoers.” Hence, he defends that only those who have been convicted here for joining a terrorist organization should have their sentences discounted. The AVT lawyer recalls that after committing attacks the terrorists “moved to France, where there was then a more lax criminal response, avoiding police and judicial pressure in our country.”
For the lawyer, this legal change “means assuming the arguments of the defense of the ETA members. “His aspiration was to achieve this.” Guerrero remembers hearing “Anboto” in more than one trial repeat the same refrain in court: “I have already been convicted in France.” The same argument that José Antonio Urrutikoetxea, “Josu Ternera”, has used without success until now to try to avoid prosecution for the attack on the Civil Guard barracks in Zaragoza in 1987, in which eleven people, six of them minors, age, were murdered.
«I don’t know if it is the greatest judicial victory of the ETA terrorists, but it is at the same level as what they achieved with the repeal of the ”Parot doctrine”. Leaving aside how many ETA members it affects, with respect to the victims it means exactly the same thing,” says the lawyer.
Antonio Guerrero (AVT)
«It is a shock to see how the work we have done for years to gather evidence to convict terrorists is minimized. It’s not that all that work has been thrown away, but almost,” he laments. The AVT lawyer complains that “if they already serve a few years in prison in relation to the seriousness of the acts for which they were convicted, on top of that those who were convicted by the 1973 Penal Code, which I don’t know if “It will affect some, as they benefited from redemptions for work, you see how after being sentenced to sentences totaling a thousand years in prison they serve less than 20…”
“It is a setback not only on a legal level, because of how it can affect the proceedings opened in Spain by ETA members with sentences served in France, but above all an emotional setback,” he acknowledges. Vanessa Santiago, lawyer of the Dignity and Justice association (DyJ). “After 18 years defending the victims of terrorism,” he says, “when you see these absurdities you come to internalize their desolation and incomprehension.”
For the lawyer, the reform was “absolutely avoidable legally speaking, since the transposition of that 2008 framework decision was already done through Organic Law 7/2014 with that time limit provided for in the additional provision and was endorsed not only by the Supreme Court in numerous rulings, but also by the TC in 2016 and by the ECtHR in October 2018. This last court, he recalls, “dismissed the appeal filed by an ETA member against a Supreme Court ruling that did not take into account the sentences served in France.” Therefore, he insists, this legal modification “was not necessary, since the current regulation has the endorsement of both the Spanish and European courts.”
Vanessa Santiago (Dignity and Justice)
“It was not inevitable,” agrees Antonio Guerrero, who sees in the reform – without expressly citing the Government’s transfers to EH Bildu – “a foundation that is neither legal nor accommodating our system to European law.” “ETA no longer kills, it has disappeared, but “does that justify cutting their sentences?” The AVT lawyer affirms that legally he can understand that in this situation “reasons of criminal policy justify a rapprochement of the prisoners since ETA does not kill, but this is different because it means that we are going to take years of prison from them through the door of back”.
Along the same lines, Carmen Ladrón de Guevara, a lawyer specialized in the defense of victims of terrorism, assumes that this sudden legal change “is a blow to those of us who have been working for years to do justice to the victims of terrorism before the courts.” “And more so in the case – he adds – of the lawyers who have defended the opposite both in the National Court and in the Supreme Court or even before the Human Rights Court.”
Carmen Ladrón de Guevara
For Ladrón de Guevara, the reform was “perfectly avoidable.” “The key is that the initial legal text did not include the repeal of the additional provision and it was introduced via amendment,” he emphasizes. “Now we will have to analyze the circumstances of each case on a case-by-case basis and study whether there is any option to appeal against the judicial decisions that decide on the calculation of French sentences,” he says regarding the application of the reform to the terrorists affected.
For José María Fuster-Fabra, lawyer for the Catalan Association of Victims of Terrorist Organizations (ACVOT), the measure also represents “a great setback, because it is an old demand of the most bloodthirsty terrorists whose releases are the most difficult to justify in the eyes of public opinion.” public and that for their defenses they were the main problem.
“It is true that the European directive exists, but it does not include that criterion of automatism that is going to be established in Spain with the monumental oversight of the opposition,” points out the lawyer, for whom “from a technical point of view an analysis would have to be carried out. deeper.” «The crime of association to commit a crime, for which many of them have been in prison in France, is a crime equivalent in Spain to that of belonging to a criminal organization –argues the ACVOT lawyer–, but the application to crimes is different. “for the murders that the terrorists may have committed.”
José María Fuster-Fabra
Fuster-Fabra considers that “just as it seems that the text is going to be approved, it will be very difficult to ensure that it is not applied.” However, he clarifies, “it will have to be carefully analyzed case by case to try to avoid its application, although the trap is in the very content of the text that they have introduced with the opposition’s confusion.”
The AVT lawyer agrees with this assessment, who sees it as “complicated” for the situation to be reversed after the legal change comes into force. “It doesn’t seem like it’s a question of interpretation,” Guerrero says resignedly.