New judicial front against the former leadership of ETA for the murder of Miguel Ángel Blanco

A group of people demonstrated in Ermua in July 2007 to demand the release of Miguel Ángel Blanco, kidnapped by ETA and later murdered. EFE/LUIS TEJIDO

A new front is making its way in the courts against the former leadership of ETA.

The Central Court of Instruction 6 of the National High Court, headed by magistrate Manuel García-Castellón, has asked the Prosecutor's Office for an opinion on a complaint filed by the Dignity and Justice association to investigate the former leadership of the gang for ordering the attack against Miguel Ángel Blanco, the councilor of the PP of Ermua (Bizkaia) kidnapped and murdered in July 1997. According to legal sources, the public ministry has reported in favor of admitting the complaint of the group of victims, which tries to open a new path to condemn the former heads of the terrorist organization as “mediate authors” —what is popularly known as “intellectual authors”— of different crimes carried out by their subordinates.

Dignidad y Justicia presented a 138-page brief, dated February 6, where it asked the judge to admit its complaint against nine former ETA leaders for Blanco's murder.

An initiative that is directed against Miguel Gracia Arregui, alias

;

Joseba Andoni Urrutikoetxea,

;

Mikel Albisu,

;

José Javier Arizcuren,

, who is already prosecuted as inducer of the crime;

Maria Soledad Iparraguirre,

;

Juan Carlos Iglesias,

;

Asier Oyarzabal,

;

Vicente Goicoetxea,

;

Jokin Echevarria Lagisquet;

and Carlos Ibarguren,

.

The association maintains that the "material executors of the kidnapping and murder acted following the instructions received from the management" of ETA.

A gang so “hierarchical” that “nothing moved” without being “authorized” or “ordered” by its top managers, according to the Civil Guard.

“The convicted material executor, [Francisco Javier García Gaztelu,

] took up the pistol.

But the nine defendants here wielded the material executor in the same way, "underlines the complaint.

“[The nine] are the real authors behind the author.

In fact, they had an unquestionably superior control of the fact, because if the expendable pawn who wielded the pistol had finally refused to shoot, he would have been easily replaced by another expendable pawn who had fired and Miguel Ángel Blanco would have been killed as well, "he continues. the brief of Dignity and Justice, to which EL PAÍS had access.

“On the other hand, if the nine had decided not to assassinate him, given the strong hierarchy and internal discipline of ETA, no executing pawn would have even dared to disobey the zuba —the leadership of the gang, in the jargon of terrorists— and Blanco he would have saved his life”, the document emphasizes: “They, the nine, had absolute control over ETA”.

Mikel Albisu, alias 'Mikel Antza', goes to the San Sebastián courts to testify as the alleged perpetrator of the murder of Gregorio Ordóñez, on December 21. JAVIER HERNÁNDEZ

In this line, the victims' association has asked the García-Castellón court to make new inquiries about the crime.

Among other investigations, that new reports be requested from the Police and the Civil Guard on the "command structure" of the gang at the time of the murder, provide "any element of evidence" to identify other alleged "accomplices, inducers, collaborators and accessories” of the crime;

and that the nine aforementioned former leaders be called to testify as defendants.

The Prosecutor's Office has not ruled in favor or against these proceedings, according to the same sources.

Fence to the excúpulas of the band

In three other summaries, the Court currently maintains 18 former gang leaders charged as indirect perpetrators for the attack committed at Barajas airport's T-4 in 2006, which left two fatalities and whose perpetrators have already been convicted;

for the assassination of popular councilor Gregorio Ordóñez in January 1995;

and for the car bomb attack on judge Francisco Querol in 2000, which killed the judge and three other people.

In these three cases, judges Santiago Abascal and Santiago Pedraz have given the green light to investigate the former leaders of the organization.

“ETA, since the early 1980s, has been established on a hierarchical basis based on rigid discipline,” says Abascal in one of his recent resolutions on the T-4 attack: “The executive committee decides, coordinates, selects targets, sends the information, delivers the necessary material to attack and expressly orders to carry out the attack”.

Pedraz has also written that the band acted with "a hierarchy based on a rigid discipline" in which its management "assumes all the managerial functions so that there is nothing that that leadership does not control, promote or direct."

Seven of the nine ETA members against whom the Dignity and Justice complaint is directed for the murder of Miguel Ángel Blanco are on the list of 18 former bosses already charged by one of those other three summaries.

All except Jokin Echevarria Lagisquet and Carlos Ibarguren,

.

The victims are aware of the difficulties involved in opening this new path.

This was warned by Carmen Ladrón de Guevara, a lawyer for the AVT: “The Supreme Court has already ruled on several occasions and it is necessary to demonstrate some specific link with the attack in question —such as letters or annotations in agendas that implicate them—.

The jurisprudence has indicated that, because they are bosses, they cannot be blamed for everything that the organization does in its stage”.

The Dignity and Justice complaint delves into the same line and, although it recognizes that the Supreme Court has not applied the thesis of mediate authorship in any case against ETA, it affirms that it has done so in "other cases of organized apparatus of power" , “business type”.

So far, the National Court has convicted three people for the murder of Miguel Ángel Blanco.

To Txapote, who pulled the trigger;

his partner, Irantzu Gallastegi,

, who also participated in the execution of the attack;

already

Ibón Muñoa, former councilor of Herri Batasuna in Eibar, who worked close to where the PP councilor did and who facilitated the operation of the terrorist command.

As the Dignity and Justice complaint recalls, the sentence against Txapote and Amaia considered as a "proven fact" that both "followed the instructions received from the leadership" of ETA to "first kidnap, and finally assassinate, the popular mayor."