“We have 200 prisoners in prison and, if to get them out we have to vote in favor of the budget, then we vote. I tell you that loud and clear.” The sentence, pronounced in Basque, was said Arnaldo Otegi in October 2021 during an event with left-wing activists Abertzale.
Three years later, the words of the leader of EH Bildu This seems like a self-fulfilling prophecy. From Pedro Sanchez in 2021 to cede full prison powers to the Basque Executive, a demand of the independence movement, the PNV and the PSOEThe , which governs in coalition, granted the third degree to 82 ETA terrorists, according to victims’ associations.
“It would take six years, maybe in six years we will achieve it, but I can’t say that in public,” Otegi said. Said and done: in three years, almost half of the 200 ETA members Otegi asked to vote have been released. General state budgets.
The last to benefit from the semi-freedom regime will be the members of ETA Luis Mariñelarena Garciandia And Harriet Iragi Gurrutxaga. After learning the news, associations of ETA victims expressed their “total disappointment” with the regional government and, more particularly, the Minister of Justice and Human Rights, the socialist party Mary Jesus Saint Joseph.
The reason? It was she who, in the end, granted the semi-freedom regime to these two “unrepentant” members of ETA and did so, moreover, without explaining to the associations the reasons why this decision was been motivated, which had not happened until now.
Questioned on this file, the Minister of the Interior, Fernando Grande Marlaskaspecified that these prison services are “endorsed by the judicial authority”. That is to say that he does not see it as a political decision, but that he supervises these third degrees in strict compliance with the law.
For the PP, with these new concessions to ETA, the PSOE pays for the support of its partners in Congress. For Alberto Nuñez Feijóois “the hidden letter of the hidden pact between the PSOE and Bildu, which we will know little by little”.
PNV-PSOE Government
Since the formation of the new government in the spring, the PSOE has become the party responsible for granting third degrees to ETA prisoners, a matter until now in the hands of Basque nationalists.
After the good results of the socialists in regional elections dOn April 21 (it went from 9% to 14% of the votes) against a PNV winning in votes but tied in seats with Bildu, the PSOE found itself with the strength to ask for more weight in the new executive. The Peneuvistas, with Imanol Pradales like new lehendakariended up entrusting prison management to the minority partner for the first time.
Luis Mariñelarena Garciandia He was found guilty of taking part in the car bombing that cost the socialist politician his life. Fernando Buesa and his escort Jorge Diez Elorza in the year 2000.
Harriet Iragi Gurrutxaga He was sentenced to a total of 128 years in prison for three murders. All three took place at Andalusia: shot down Luis Portergeneral prosecutor of the Superior Court of Justice of Andalusia; participated in the murder of José María Martin CarpenaPP advisor in Malaga, died shot six times in front of his wife and daughter; and was involved in the attack on Colonel Medical Antonio Emilio Muñoz Cariñanos.
“Not sorry”
So far, the self-government He sent victims’ associations “a detailed information sheet” with which they could “check what they based their decisions on”, that is to say, check whether or not there was repentance on the part of the member. of the ETA,
He Collective of Victims of Terrorism in the Basque Country (Covite) considers that “neither of the two members of ETA meets the fundamental requirements required by law to progress in rank, namely repentance for their crimes” and “collaboration with Justice”.
ETA victims recall that general prison law includes the need to ask for forgiveness from victims and to collaborate expressly and concretely with Justice.
For example, a button: the two prisoners “are constantly exhibited by the nationalist left in their demonstrations where they demand their release, which proves that they do not repent”. In fact, this summer, the two ETA prisoners “were paraded and cheered” for several popular festivals.
