The National Court’s Prosecutor’s Office “will continue to maintain its criteria” regarding the request for pardon of ETA prisoners who wish to access a prison permit, because “this is the doctrine of the Criminal Court.” If this doctrine changes, it will depend on what the Supreme Court ends up saying. “And, in the meantime, we will have to continue” because pardon, in these cases, It is “absolutely transcendent” .
This is what Carlos Bautista, the coordinating prosecutor of the Penitentiary Surveillance of the National Court, or, what is the same, the person responsible for ensuring that promotions, conditional releases or prison permits for prisoners for terrorism, are granted. adjust scrupulously to the regulations. On the eve of participating this Tuesday in the International Congress of Victims of Terrorism organized by the Community of Madrid and the San Pablo CEU University Foundation, he receives ABC in his office, reluctant to evaluate specific resolutions.
Let us recall that a doctrine is considered abolished when another replaces it and consolidates itself. According to him, it is still early to affirm that the order written on the 3rd by the magistrate of the first section of the criminal chamber José Ricardo de Prada has already represented a change of direction within the National Court, which, against the current, left in writing that pardon is not required when it comes to prison permits. “Of course, we “We will continue to maintain the doctrine of the House.” said the prosecutor.
Faced with the scenario in which this doctrine ultimately evolves in favor of prisoners, it directly alludes to what the Supreme Court says. And achieving this, he comments, “would only be interesting in case of consolidation” this round. “We will have to see what the Criminal Chamber of the National Court says in its successive resolutions on the appeals filed by the detainees. “There will be some.”
For Bautista, “even if it is not in the letter of the law”, the requirement of pardon to benefit from a prison permit “it is clearly deduced” of the prison regulations because “it refers to the situation of the prisoner”, which must be taken into account. And, when it comes to terrorism, “a very specific circle of criminal values that is also contrary to the entire constitutional structure”, it is “necessary to verify that the subject has distanced himself from the terrorist organization” and that his case is recognized as “simple acts of common law crime that should not have occurred and that he repudiates. “That is why the figure of forgiveness is absolutely transcendent which also appears in more than twenty criminal court files,” he adds.
False repentants
When it comes to third degrees or probation, the scenario It is no longer interpretative It is the foot of the law that establishes the obligation of this express pardon. However, not all of the prisoner’s statements pass the filter. “There is a set of letters that look like collective letters with an individual signatory. It is based on elements that are generally visible: the recognition of the harm that is not considered unjust, empathy with the victims but without asking for forgiveness, and the commitment to peaceful means to achieve political objectives, which is to say that the previous action, which is a terrorist action, was also a way of doing politics. When you see these three elements, it is when you distinguish a letter, let’s say, that does not meet the requirements, and this is what the doctrine of the Court says, from a letter that has none of that and that as soon as you read it you realize that it contains something more,” he explains.
Bautista recalls that this is in any case a recent phenomenon, since it was “three or four years ago” when “the organization told the prisoners to start asking for all the benefits included in the penitentiary legislation” and the judgments also changed: “From a strategy of rupture to a defense strategy .
The fight is not over
And two years ago, due to the distribution of tasks within the National Prosecutor’s Office, there was only one prosecutor left, Bautista himself. coordinate all files regarding ETA prisoners. “Thus, by comparison, it was possible to detect perfectly whether or not we are dealing with a similar type of letter. “Before, the files were divided between the three prosecutors and it was more complicated.”
The prosecutor stresses, however, that the requirements imposed on ETA prisoners are part of “legal structures” that apply to all those convicted of terrorist crimes, not just ETA members. He warns that “it is wrong to say that there will not be more victims of terrorism, even if ETA has disappeared, jihadist terrorism is still present, which can strike at any time, as happened in 2017” on the Ramblas in Barcelona. Also remember that the fight against ETA “is not yet over” and the security forces, judges and prosecutors are “still behind issues that have not been resolved and on which there are clues.” In this sense, he highlights great advances: “We are able to do more concrete, more technical research, to present increasingly sophisticated evidence.”
The victims, at the center
In this dual perspective, he claims the importance of events such as the International Congress of Victims of Terrorism in which he is participating today. “Precisely, what the 2015 Victims Status Act aims to do is to give greater participation in the execution of sentences to those who have been convicted. the great forgotten, the victim . The 21st century is one of consolidation of the intervention of victims in all phases of the criminal process and it is a setback to consider that now they are going to backtrack and must participate less and less” because ETA has been dissolved. “A society that does not care about its victims has a serious problem and a serious moral problem” said Bautista.
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