What happened to the 13 ETA prisoners for whom the nationalist left interceded before the Interior

Participants in the demonstration called by the Sare collective in support of ETA prisoners held on January 8 in Bilbao. Miguel Toña (EFE)

The report of the Civil Guard that has revealed that in 2019 the spokesman for Sare (group to support ETA prisoners), the former Basque councilor Joseba Azkarraga, and the Basque parliamentarian of EH Bildu Julen Arzuaga maintained contacts with senior officials of the Ministry of the Interior To talk about the prison situation of the inmates of the gang, he reproduces WhatsApp messages in which 134 ETA inmates are cited by name or alias for whom he allegedly intended to intercede.

They are those included in what one of the participants in a chat on the nationalist left called, in March 2019, "the list of priorities" to transfer to the Interior to improve their prison situation.

At that time, the approaches to prisons near the Basque Country and Navarra were produced with a dropper and did not exceed thirty, despite Pedro Sánchez having announced almost a year earlier, in the summer of 2018, a change in the prison policy of dispersion then in force.

The prison data of these 13 prisoners to which EL PAÍS has had access suggest that those efforts were largely unsuccessful.

Most had to wait more than a year to be approached.

In other cases, the improvements in their prison situation occurred by judicial decision, sometimes with the approval of the Prosecutor's Office.

Mikel Arrieta Llopis.

When the Abertzale left supposedly interceded for him, this ETA member was being held in the prison of Algeciras (Cádiz), one of the furthest from the Basque Country.

There he continued for 19 more months, until in October 2020 the Interior announced that he would occupy a cell in the Soria prison.

Six months later, in April 2021, he was transferred again, this time to the Martutene prison in San Sebastian.

Aitziber Coello Ona India

.

The partner of another ETA member, who was suffering from a serious illness at the time, when the nationalist left raised an interest in her, Interior was already processing a change in her prison situation to improve the prison regime she had at the time and which was finally approved in May 2019 by the prison surveillance judge.

She was then applied a specific treatment program, since she was granted a restricted semi-liberty by application of article 100.2 of the Penitentiary Regulations.

Txus Martin Hernando.

The chat messages point to the need for this ETA member, included by the nationalist left in the group of seriously ill inmates, to enjoy an exit permit.

He had to wait until June 2020 for the prison surveillance judge to grant him, with the support of the Prosecutor's Office, the first three-day trial.

Martín had been held in a Basque prison since 2011, during the last period of the socialist government of José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero.

José Carlos Apestegía Jaca.

The efforts of the abertzale left to improve his prison situation caught this ETA member in the Ocaña prison.

He had to wait 21 months for Interior to finally agree to approach him.

It was in December 2020. On that date he also became classified in the second prison level, which gave him the option of requesting exit permits.

In May 2021 he benefited from a second transfer and was confined in Martutene prison.

Ainhoa ​​Garcia Montero.

This is the ETA member on the list that took the shortest time to be approached: three months.

In June 2019, she was sent to the Topas prison (Salamanca), although she was kept in the first prison level, the hardest.

A year later, the judge gave her the second grade, but the Prosecutor's Office appealed this decision and the National High Court reclassified her in the first grade.

In December 2020 she was transferred to the Asturias prison and was granted the second degree.

Oier Urrutia González.

When his name appeared in the chat of the nationalist left as one of those who should appear on "the list of priorities", Urrutia had already been approached.

He had been transferred shortly before from the A Lama prison (Pontevedra) to the Logroño prison.

He too had been classified in the second grade.

In July 2020 he was sent to the Zaballa prison (Álava) and given the third degree or semi-liberty, which in recent years has been granted to less than 30 ETA members.

Karmelo Lauzirika Orive.

The abertzale left aspired that this ETA member be held in the Logroño prison, along with his partner, Marta Igarriz, who had been in that prison since 2018. He did not succeed.

In October 2020 he was transferred from the Castellón prison to the Zaballa prison (Álava).

In August 2019, the judge had granted him the second prison degree.

Oskarbi Jauregi Amondarain.

The participants in the chat complained that this ETA member was alone in the Teixeiro prison (A Coruña) and proposed sending her to the Villabona prison, in Asturias.

They got it too.

Jauregi had to wait until November 2020 to leave the Galician prison.

He did so bound for Martutene prison.

In 2019 he finally managed to access the second prison degree.

Lierni Armendariz González de Langarica.

Like the previous one, she was in a Galician prison.

In his case, in A Lama, in Pontevedra.

The nationalist left wanted her to be taken to the Asturian prison of Villabona.

However, her first transfer was to the one in El Dueso (Cantabria) and for that she had to wait until September 2020. Then she was also classified as second grade prison.

Last January she was transferred again, this time to Martutene prison.

Sebas Etxaniz Alkorta.

In the exchange of messages, one of the participants in the chat demands that exit permits be obtained for this prisoner.

He didn't get it until July 2020, when he was classified in third grade and went on to enjoy semi-liberty.

Etxaniz was then the oldest ETA prisoner, at 76 years old.

Joseba Arregi Erostarbe,

This ETA leader, one of the three arrested in 1992 in a village in the French town of Bidart, was in the prison of Villena (Alicante) when the contacts of the nationalist left took place, which aspired to be transferred to the prison of Burgos.

It was not so.

In December 2019 he was taken to the Asturias prison and was kept in the first degree.

In October 2020 he moved to a cell at Martutene Prison and progressed to second grade.

Fiti wrote in 2018, after the dissolution of the band, a letter asking for forgiveness from the victims.

Zigor Orbe Sevillano.

The members of the chat raised in May 2019 to ask the Interior for its approach.

At that time, Orbe had just been transferred from Puerto I to Puerto II, two of the three penitentiary centers located in Puerto de Santa María (Cádiz), one of the furthest from the Basque Country.

Parliamentarian Julen Arzuaga raised in an email to the Secretary General of Prisons, Ángel Luis Ortiz, that Orbe "can be transferred promptly to a destination closer to his family and place of residence."

However, the ETA prisoner remained in the Cadiz prison for another 20 months, until January 2021, when he was taken to the Zaballa prison (Álava).

In his case, the judge granted him the second prison degree in 2019, but the Prosecutor's Office appealed and the National Court returned him to the first degree.

He did not gain access to second grade until January 2021.

Aitzol Gogorza Otaegi.

On February 25, 2019, parliamentarian Julen Arzuaga forwarded to his colleagues the message that the Secretary General of Penitentiary Institutions, Ángel Luis Ortiz, had supposedly sent him, in which he explained that the Basauri prison (Bizkaia) where Gogorza was being held had agreed to send to the Penitentiary Surveillance Court the prisoner's individualized treatment program for the serious mental illness he suffered at the time.

The objective was for the magistrate to approve the transfer to a hospital in San Sebastián.

A month later, in April, the judge authorized, with the support of the Prosecutor's Office, the release of Gogorza for health reasons, so that he could finish serving the rest of his sentence in the hospital and, when he was discharged,

at home without being able to leave under the strict control of a telematic device.

In the order, the judge prohibited the ETA member from participating "directly or indirectly" in acts of support for the terrorist organization or its inmates, or that may involve "contempt, injury or damage to the victims of terrorism."