The ETA member Iratxe Sorzabal in a trial at the National High Court last February. FERNANDO ALVARADO (EFE)
The Ministry of the Interior and the Basque Government have agreed on the next transfer to prisons in the Basque Country of another 11 ETA prisoners.
Among the beneficiaries is the former head of the terrorist organization Iratxe Sorzabal, one of the three people who, on October 20, 2011, read the statement of the definitive cessation of violence that led, seven years later, to the dissolution of the organization terrorist.
Sorzabal, who was arrested in France in 2015, was handed over by the Paris authorities to the Spanish justice on September 9 after serving the sentence imposed by the French courts.
She had therefore been in a Spanish jail for just over a month.
Sorzabal, held since then in the Madrid prison of Estremera, was sentenced in February to more than 24 years in prison for placing two explosive devices in Gijón in November 1996, a sentence that is not yet final as it has been appealed by the ETA .
In fact, she is currently in preventive detention, although with no possibility of being released in the short or medium term, since the National High Court agreed shortly after her surrender that she remain in this situation up to the limit of half of the sentence. sentence, 12 years, given "the seriousness of the crimes for which she has been convicted and the penalties imposed."
When she was arrested in France, seven years ago, the Spanish Prosecutor's Office announced that it would request the reopening of 21 cases against her for her alleged involvement in the
Ibarla commando attacks
, in which she was allegedly a member.
Among them, the murder of the ertzaina Ramón Doral, in 1996;
and that of the policeman Eduardo López Moreno, in 1994. She was also implicated in the placement of five artifacts in December 1995 in El Corte Inglés in Valencia, the explosion of which caused the death of a woman, Josefina Corresa.
However, except for the Gijón attack for which she has been convicted, the rest of the proceedings against her were filed or provisionally dismissed, according to legal sources.
Among the other 10 ETA members who will be transferred shortly are Asier Arzallus Goñi, alias
Epeta
, convicted, among others, of the murder of
El Mundo
journalist José Luis López de Lacalle;
the historic Julián Achurra Egurola,
Pototo
;
Mattin Sarasola, one of the authors of the attack against the T-4 of Madrid's Barajas airport;
Gurutz Aguirresarobe, sentenced for the shooting murder, in February 2003, of the local police chief of Andoain (Gipuzkoa) Joseba Pagazaurtundua, and Harriet Iragi, sentenced to a total of 128 years in prison for the murders of the Malaga PP councilor José Martín Carpena, prosecutor Luis Portero and medical colonel Antonio Muñoz Cariñanos.
In the case of the latter, his previous transfer – from the Castellón prison in Albòcasser to the one in Logroño where he is now – was punctuated by controversy because the treatment board (a body made up of prison professionals) had advised against it by a large majority. five votes to two.
Despite this,
The rest of the beneficiaries of the measure are Beatriz Etxebarria ―convicted of planting the van bomb that exploded in front of the Burgos barracks at dawn on July 29, 2009, leaving 160 injured of various kinds, including 41 children―, Itziar Moreno ―handed over by France in August and accused of planting several explosive devices―, Iker Olabarrieta ―one of the authors of the bomb attack that badly injured former PSOE leader Eduardo Madina in 2002― and Andoni Otegi ―in prison for several attacks, among them the one perpetrated against the Santa Pola (Alicante) barracks in which a six-year-old girl died.Otegi is one of the ETA members who has participated in recent months in the so-called restorative justice workshops launched by Interior to facilitate their reintegration and which include meetings with their victims.
When these 11 movements materialize, the number of ETA prisoners held in prisons in the Basque Country, which has been managed for a year by the Executive of Iñigo Urkullu, will be around 140. In those dependent on the Ministry of the Interior there will be 37, 10 of them in Pamplona prison.
Sources from the Basque Government emphasize that their Department of Justice does not accept the transfer of all ETA prisoners who request it and detail that in six cases it has been rejected due to the inmate's lack of roots in the Basque Country.
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