The National Court has annulled for the second time the granting of the third degree of prison (also known as semi-freedom regime) to Joseba Arregi Erostarbe, alias Fittipaldi either fiti, a former ETA leader who is currently serving a sentence in the Martutene prison in San Sebastian. The Penitentiary Surveillance judge, José Luis Castro, has revoked the decision of the Basque Government to grant progression to the ETA member for reasons of age, since the magistrate concludes that he must still make progress in his “recognition” of the damage caused to the victims of terrorism .
This resolution of the judge, dated November 27, comes after the Prosecutor’s Office presented an appeal against the decision of the Department of Equality, Justice and Social Policies of the Basque Government, which agreed in April to progress the terrorist to third degree “for reasons of humanity and personal dignity, due to age in people who present a low degree of social danger.” Fiti is 77 years old, he has been locked up in Spanish penitentiaries since November 2000 – previously, since his arrest in 1992 in the French town of Bidart, in French prisons – and has already served three quarters of his sentence, which he will complete in 2026.
However, the Court emphasizes that the medical reports do not reveal “a deterioration in the inmate’s health due to his age.” And, although the judge admits that “there is an important evolution of the inmate in terms of criminal assumption,” he adds that he still has a way to go. “It is necessary to clarify his personal position towards the specific victims of his crimes,” points out, for example, the magistrate when referring to the terrorist, sentenced to more than 2,000 years in prison for his involvement in several attacks. . The resolution highlights that his actions caused 16 deaths and 88 injuries.
Judge Castro specifies that Joseba Arregi, who insists on repudiating criminal activity and defends the abandonment of the use of violence, refuses to go further and make an express request for forgiveness from his victims. This is how the terrorist excuses himself in a letter sent to the National Court: “I clearly feel that I would not have been the cause of his pain, but I am and I can do nothing to repair the consequences of some of my actions. Naming all of them in a writing seems cold, distant, perhaps re-victimizing and I don’t want to leave any of them aside.”
Likewise, the court asked Fiti (who was in the ETA leadership that decided on the Hipercor attack, which caused 21 deaths in 1987) if he would be willing to collaborate to prevent the band’s actions and to clarify the unsolved ETA crimes. , to which he responded: “I have no problem responding to the judicial calls made to me. But, honestly, I think this question is out of place in the year 2023. Nobody disputes that ETA dissolved and that the people of my generation who belonged to it have no intention of resurrecting it. I do not believe, sincerely, that there is any possibility today of a resurgence of activities of this type. For the rest, I have been disconnected (organically, if you will) from said organization since I went to prison, more than 32 years ago. The people I met at that time are all in prison, or have completed their 30-year prison sentences, or have simply died. “I don’t think there is anything that I can tell that is of interest, since the events in which I participated are finished.”
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The Government of Iñigo Urkullu, which took over the management of the prisons located in the Basque Country in October 2021, already granted the third degree to Fiti in 2022. Then, the Penitentiary Surveillance judge also revoked that decision.
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