The Prosecutor's Office opposes further lengthening the case regarding tributes to ETA prisoners

The Prosecutor's Office of the National Court opposes further lengthening the investigation into the alleged structures created between 2016 and 2019 to organize events to honor ETA members. The public ministry, which has already asked to try six people for these events, has filed an appeal against the decision of Judge Manuel García-Castellón, who accepted last week the request of the Dignity and Justice association – linked to the PP – to resume the summary (which had been completed in October) to investigate some chats on the Telegram application, two of them linked to Sortu. The public prosecution does not see any indication of “criminal activity” in these messaging channels and, in addition, emphasizes that the content of these conversations is “unrelated” to the objective of these investigations.

This judicial case was opened in 2018 for alleged terrorist glorification due to the tributes to ETA inmates who are released from prison, known as ongi etorri. Last October, García-Castellón considered the summary exhausted and decided not to extend it further. Already in December, the Prosecutor's Office presented the document concluding that there was coordination to organize these acts of humiliation of the victims and, therefore, proposed to prosecute and put on trial six suspects: the former ETA members Antonio López Ruiz, alias Kubati; Carlos Sáez de Eguilaz, Kai; and Felipe San Epifanio, Pipe; Haymar Altuna and Oihana Garmendia, from Sortu; and Oihana San Vicente, from Kalera Kalera.

However, last week, the magistrate admitted Dignity and Justice's request to conduct new tests that the group considers pending. Thus, the judge revoked his October decision and considered that “the closure of the investigation” that he had decreed “was premature”: “As there was a lack of necessary procedures to clarify the facts being investigated.” García-Castellón agreed to investigate the existence of those three Telegram chats supposedly used to “promote campaigns and mobilizations in favor of the prisoners of the terrorist organization.” As indicated in a car, the ETA members Kai and Pipe participated in these messaging groups, through which they received “abundant information”, “guidelines” and “instructions” about events and mobilizations, as well as “messages about the release of prisoners.” of ETA.”

A thesis that the Prosecutor's Office rejects in its appeal when ruling on these Telegram groups: “Neither guidelines and instructions are given, nor does the activity carried out in said social media constitute criminal activity of any kind,” criticizes the public ministry, which warns that, if we continue with this line of investigation, we would be “involving a prospective investigation”: “Not everything related to the group of prisoners of the extinct terrorist group ETA is a crime.”

The public ministry also takes advantage of its brief to oppose Dignity and Justice's request to name Joseba Azkarraga, promoter of Sare, a citizen platform supporting ETA prisoners, as a defendant. The group of victims put him in the target for another series of conversations intervened by the Civil Guard. But the Prosecutor's Office reproaches the association for “not saying at any time what alleged crimes” would be attributed to it, in addition to not seeing anything criminal in those chats.

“We could split the conversations [a las que se refiere Dignidad y Justicia] in two large groups. The first group would refer to the conversations held among themselves by various people related to the world of prisoners of the extinct terrorist group ETA. The second block is made up of the communications maintained by some of the above with those in charge of the General Directorate of Penitentiary Institutions. Regarding the first, it is about Basque citizens talking about the prison situation of prisoners of a terrorist gang that does not exist and planning strategies to favor their interests, without any relationship being revealed with Kalera Kalera in the organization of the acts of tribute to the terrorists,” criticizes the Prosecutor's Office.

The public ministry continues like this: “It is not a crime to be Basque, it is not a crime to be a prisoner, it is not a crime to talk, it is not a crime to act politically in the direction that everyone pleases. And, of course, it is not a crime for lawyers to take whatever steps they consider appropriate to try to favor the prison situation of their clients.” “Regarding the second block, we are not told what crimes could be found in the communications maintained with the General Directorate of Penitentiary Institutions. In them there is no hint of prevarication, that is, of the issuance of arbitrary resolutions in awareness of their injustice, since all the issues related to penitentiary policy to which reference is made (progressions in grade, permits, releases , etc.) are subject to the control of the Central Penitentiary Surveillance Court with the intervention of the Public Prosecutor's Office.”

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