It is a hard year at Almudena Blanco’s house, daughter of Lieutenant Colonel Pedro Antonio Blanco. And we are only in February. Just a few weeks ago 25 years old in the morning went to school knowing, because he heard the rumble, that something … It had passed. Soon, he will have 10 years that the last Etarra responsible for that bomb that segated his father’s life was firmly sentenced by the Supreme Court. Another event, after all. But on Thursday Almudena sounded again and the voice did not talk about tributes: “They have given him the third degree.”
The Basque Penitentiary Administration has granted this advantage to the Etarra of the Buruhauste Ivan Apaolaza command, which in 2000 was sitting in a car with Gorka Palacios attending live how the official vehicle of an military in the Madrid Paseo de la Virgen del Puerto del Puerto . Has turned 17 of the 30 years that could pass between bars to settle a conviction that, in reality, was 123 years in jail for terrorist murder and injuries. The key is now what the National Court Prosecutor’s Office does in this regard. Only the Public Ministry can resort to.
“This does not go from revenge, this goes from justice,” says the military’s orphan, which regrets that the victims are “sold”, without tools to refute these types of decisions that suppose “a sake”: “It is difficult to believe in this justice and keep calm when the full penalties are not fulfilled ».
Apaolaza was the last to fall from that command. “A China in the shoe,” she says, of a family that sought justice. After the explosion, Almudena went to school and he prepared his escape. They found him in Canada, without an extradition treaty that facilitated things. Six years would pass since the National Court claimed it and until the mounted police gave him the stop, and seven more years until finally, he sat on the bench and the entire command could be judged. He turned to the Supreme, who in 2015 said the last word confirming the penalties.
It had not been a attack more, but a turning point. The murder of Lieutenant Colonel Blanco ended an ETA truce that extended 14 months -19 carried out without killing – and unleashed the beginning of a campaign that would mark the 2000 in red in all calendars. It was one of the bloodiest years in the history of the terrorist band: 23 dead in 12 months.
“Each one with his conscience, but that fulfills the penalty”
Now, the Ministry of Justice of the Basque Country, which manages the prisons to which the government was approaching the terrorists that the dispersion policy had distributed throughout the national territory, considers that it can progress in degree for the time it has fulfilled, Because he is disconnected from the terrorist band, because he has only a crime of blood and because they say, he has asked his victims expressly with a letter that moves away from the standard.
“We have never received any request for forgiveness or regret,” says Almudena Blanco. These writings are presented to penitentiary surveillance, they do not have to reach the victims. Nor would it be a change for her and her family, she recognizes, if it is in exchange for reducing the conviction. «A person who is a terrorist by profession, who murders an innocent, should not subtract any month, should fully fulfill the penalties. And even if he was serious, because each with his conscience, that does not take away to comply with the penalty imposed by his crime. It does not help me to be a reason to shorten the penalty, “he says to ABC.
He does not see enough, nor his mother, “exhausted” fighting to keep the memory of what terrorism in Spain alive, which are not only they and the rest of mutilated families, “who was a full -fledged blackmail” To a whole country. Remember that not long ago, Apaolaza was called to declare at the National Court with his commandmates (Gorka Palacios, Ana Belén Egüez and Juan Luis Rubenach) for the murder of Judge Francisco Querol and was silent. “He had the opportunity to collaborate with justice and did not.” That would be a change.
94 progressions to third grade for 77 terrorists
According to the data of the Penitentiary Policy Observatory of the Association Victims of Terrorism, since the Government transferred the management of prisons to the Basque Country 94 progressions have been signed for a total of 77 convicted For crimes of the terrorist band ETA (some have been revoked by the appeal of the Prosecutor’s Office and have been granted again, so the figure is higher). In total, there are 130 ETAs in the penitentiary system.
In addition to Apaolaza, these days he has progressed to the semi -liberty Jon Zubiaurre, condemned by the murder of a member of the Ertzaintza and, only a few months ago, convicted again for the attempted murder of a couple of journalists and their baby in the year in the year 2000.
74 years fell After recognizing the facts at the trial, held last November and which he arrived with nothing to lose because he already had the maximum fulfillment in 30 years. It is on that stop on which the elapsed time has been calculated and the progression is granted.
According to the legal sources consulted by this newspaper, it has also been granted The third degree to Javier Zabalo, Without murders to his credit but whose activity attentive in the terrorist band ETA has left more than a dozen injured.
«In my family we continue to think that how it can be that a terrorist gives so light prison benefits. If the law is like that, we must respect it, we are good citizens, but that does not mean that we cannot criticize it, ”says Almudena Blanco, to underline that in this,” it is clearly insufficient. ” “Is A feeling of impotence. Of deep sadness, “he adds.
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