This Monday in the Senate, PP senator Marimar Blanco defended her group’s vote against the reform of the law which will allow Spanish prisoners to accumulate sentences served in other EU countries. The PP voted for it in Congress and did not present any partial or total amendment to the text in the Senate, but attacked the government once the deadline to modify the standard passed.
Blanco, the sister of the Ermua advisor assassinated by ETA in 1997, Miguel Ángel Blanco, took the floor to accuse the government and specifically cited the name of the terrorist who murdered her brother, Francisco Javier García Gaztelu, “Txapote “.
“What dignity are you defending? None, except that of ETA prisoners. Like “Txapote”, a name whose mere mention disgusts me from the depths of my gut. They don’t know to what extent. But Sánchez does not have the slightest problem being able to continue paying the high price of renting La Moncloa,” he said.
But “Txapote” will not benefit from the judicial reform because the National Court has already accumulated in 2014 the sentences he had served in France, which means that the ETA terrorist will remain in prison until the beginning of 2031. What the PP also did prominently in the debate this Monday. He was arrested in France in 2001 and sentenced in 2002 to 10 years in prison. He was definitively handed over to Spain in December 2007 so that he could complete his sentence and face the ongoing trials in our country.
The ETA member has accumulated hundreds of years in prison for the assassinations of Miguel Ángel Blanco, Gregorio Ordóñez and Fernando Múgica, among others, although Spanish law establishes that the maximum sentence a prisoner can serve is 30 years old. “Txapote” has repeatedly requested the accumulation of sentences handed down against him, including that of France. The National Court accepted with an order dated December 5, 2014, to which elDiario.es had access.
The judges affirm in this order that “Txapote” was sentenced in 2002 to a 10-year prison sentence in the neighboring country, which he had to finish on February 23, 2011, and they emphasize that before 2014, several sentences were been pronounced. already accumulated against him. In addition, the judges point out that “Txapote” carries a maximum sentence of 30 years, as provided for by Spanish legislation, because the ETA member was convicted before the reform which increased this sentence to 40 years. In Spain, legal changes can never be used retroactively to the detriment of prisoners.
