THE National court accepted the dismissal of the trial against the former leader of ETA Soledad Iparraguirre, ‘Anboto’, for the kidnapping and assassination of the PP advisor of Ermua Miguel Angel Blancoin July 1997, estimating that the facts are prescribed.
In an order, the magistrates of the Fourth Section of the Criminal Chamber accepted the appeal of Iparraguirre’s defense, to which the Prosecutor’s Office joined, in which they considered that since the crime was committed, the July 13, 1997until the filing of the complaint against the ETA member on February 6, 2022, almost 25 years had passed, while the limitation period was 20 years.
The popular accusations, for their part, argued that the facts were not prescribed at the time of the approval of Organic Law 5/2010 of June 22, which declares the imprescriptibility of terrorism crimes resulting in death and, therefore , this rule would be applicable to this procedure and the cause would not be prescribed.
Last March, the judge Manuel Garcia Castellón prosecuted ETA Executive Committee members José Javier Arizcuren Ruiz ‘Kantauri’, Miguel Albisu Iriarte ‘Mikel Antza’, María Soledad Iparraguire ‘Anboto’ and Ignacio de Gracia Arregui, ‘Iñaki de Rentería’, for the kidnapping and the assassination of Ermua PP advisor Miguel Ángel Blanco in July 1997. He considered the four former members of the ETA leadership perpetrators of kidnappings and terrorist murders with an aggravating circumstance of treason when the requirements of mediated paternity were met due to control of the organization, since they could have prevented the assassination, but did not, which shows “an unequivocal desire to ‘obtain the result’.
Legal certainty and non-retroactivity of unfavorable rules
The Criminal Chamber’s resolution indicates that the appeal must be examined because “otherwise the principles of legality, legal certainty, non-retroactivity of non-favorable sanctions standards and the prohibition of arbitrary action by public authorities would be violated.” a rule of law that others have tried to take away from us through acts of subversion of the constitutional order, destabilization of political or economic structures and social terror which have not been completely overcome.
He explains that, contrary to what popular and private accusations claim, in our legal system and in our jurisprudence “we do not find current resolutions that proclaim the validity of the thesis of the retroactivity of the penal regulations that it proclaims, c “that is to say, which considers that an extension of the limitation period can be applied immediately to the criminal prosecution of acts which were not prescribed at the time of its entry into force”.
The magistrates recall that, as indicated by the prosecution during the hearing of this appeal, to resolve this question “we must respect the provisions of criminal law and the jurisprudence which interprets it, to avoid the disastrous consequences that it provoked. call “Parot Doctrine“which was subsequently revoked by the European Court of Human Rights.”
Regarding the accusations’ allegation that there were already three resolutions of the Fourth Section which supported their position of non-prescription of facts, the Court warns that “we do not opt for a univocal and conclusive procedural position on The prescription that is advocated here, but on the contrary, since in the first two orders it was decided to delay or postpone the decision to be adopted on the prescription of crimes for other procedural phases and judicial bodies, due to the opposing positions , while the third order is not. The debate was not even raised, given the time elapsed since the prescription came into force.
The judges of the Court cite, in support of their thesis on retroactivity, numerous judgments of the Supreme Court and the Constitutional Court. It is the first of the calls resolved by the Fourth Section on the prosecution of ETA leaders for this attack.
