The president of the Association of Victims of Terrorism (AVT), Maite Aralucethanked this Tuesday the PP and Vox for their apologies for not having realized that they had voted in favor of a reform of the Organic Law 7/2014 which allowed members convicted of ETA crimes to be released from prison earlier than expected. But he warned there was no longer a solution. “Apologies are all well and good, but there is no going back,” said the daughter of Juan María Araluce Villarpresident of the Provincial Delegation of Gipuzkoa, assassinated by the terrorist group.
“Yesterday I spoke with Mr. Feijóo and I also spoke with Abascal and it is true that they both apologized, but hey, apologies are very good, but there is no return possible”, declared the president of the AVT. He also underlined that the victims feel “forgotten” by the political forces.
Araluce explained that the leader of the PP, Alberto Nuñez Feijóoand Vox, Santiago Abascalcontacted her to inform her that they “did not realize” that an amendment had been introduced to remove the only additional provision of the Organic Law 7/2014. This regulatory principle prevented the sentences of ETA members from being shortened by not allowing the part of the sentences they had served in the prisons of other States of the European Union to be considered as served.
“They admitted to us that they had smuggled him in,” said the daughter of the murdered ETA man. All this, despite the fact that two years ago, Araluce recalled, the AVT leader organized a press conference in which she emphasized that “just that” was one of Bildu’s assertions , parliamentary partner of the PSOE. He therefore recalled that “sooner or later, he was going to raise it”.
Araluce recalled that the Ministry of the Interior, headed by the professional judge Fernando Grande Marlaskacommunicated two years ago with associations of victims of terrorism to clarify that the validation of sentences served by prisoners in other countries of the European Union “was not going to take place”. “But hey, once again, they are lying to us again,” admitted the president of the AVT.
However, the Interior did not contact the associations after the reform of the Organic Law 7/2014as Araluce confirms. The president of the entity for victims of terrorism announced that she was this Tuesday in Vitoria for the celebration of the United Nations International Congress on Victims of Terrorism and communicated that if she meets Marlaska, she will tell her that she “lied to their faces”. . “. “You just have to laugh at the victims,” he said.
Reform promoted by Bildu
Until now, the established standard, through its unique additional provisionthat “under no circumstances will convictions handed down by a court of a Member State of the European Union before August 15, 2010 be taken into account for the application of this law”. In other words, the government of Mariano Rajoyof the PP, assured, by approving this article, that the sentence served by an ETA member convicted in another country of the European Union would not be taken into account in the time served for the sentence he should undergo in Spain.
The article disappeared from the opinion of the Justice Commission voted in the Lower House in September 2024. This text included an amendment by Sumar aimed at repealing the only additional provision. From the party led by the second vice-president and minister of labor and social economy, Yolanda Diazthey justified that it was a matter of adapting it to community regulations.
The reform would allow the immediate release of several prisoners. Among them, Javier Garcia Gaztelupseudonym Txapotethe bloodthirsty boss of ETA who killed Miguel Angel Blanco And Fernando Mugica among many others and which accumulates 450 years of conviction. However, with the new rule, the six and a half years he served in France will be counted, which would be deducted from the date he planned to leave prison: 2031. Its release could come earlier this Christmas.
