The National Court revokes the semi-liberty of the former ETA chief 'Fiti', the fourth prisoner of the gang to lose it in less than a month

The former head of ETA Joseba Arregi Erostarbe, 'Fiti', during the trial against him at the National Court, in October 2005, for sending a package bomb to a prison officer.Bernardo Rodriguez (EFE)

The judge of the National Court José Luis de Castro has revoked the former leader of ETA Joseba Arregi Erostarbe,

or

, the third degree of penitentiary or semi-freedom that he had enjoyed since February, according to what the support group for ETA Etxerat prisoners has announced on its website and EL PAÍS has confirmed from legal sources and from the Basque Government.

Arregi, who has already been re-entered in the San Sebastian Martutene prison and classified in the second degree, is the fourth ETA prisoner in less than a month from whom the justice system withdraws this prison benefit previously approved by Iñigo Urkullu's Executive, and the sixth since that he assumed, in October 2021, the management of the three penalties in the Basque Country.

In all cases, the judicial decision, which is not final and can be appealed, is produced at the request of the Prosecutor's Office.

According to Etxerat,

The judge must still rule on six appeals in which the Public Ministry asks to revoke the semi-liberty of as many ETA prisoners.

Sources from the Association of Victims of Terrorism (AVT) raise this figure to 14.

In the other three cases of ETA prisoners whose semi-liberty has been revoked in the last month ―Xabier Atristain, Mikel San Argimiro and Aitor Esnaola―, the magistrate argued his decision that, despite having distanced himself from violence , none of them had sufficiently proven their repentance or, in some cases, that they had not explicitly stated their forgiveness to the victims, in line with what was defended by the Prosecutor's Office in their appeals.

In the case of Arregi there are also writings in which they distance themselves from terrorist activity.

In 2018, after the dissolution of the band, he wrote a letter asking for forgiveness from the victims and acknowledging the pain caused by his terrorist activity.

He also promised to face the civil liability payment imposed on the convictions.

However, Fiti was the last of the three ETA leaders arrested in 1992 in a farmhouse in the French town of Bidart, to show his repentance.

The other two leaders arrested then, José Luis Álvarez Santacristina,

, and Francisco Múgica Garmendia,

, distanced themselves from the terrorist organization when it was still active.

Arregi, 76 years old, is sentenced to nearly 2,000 years in prison for his involvement in various attacks with fatalities and his sentence will expire in 2026.

The granting of the third degree or semi-liberty is a decision of the prison administration, but subject to judicial control.

Since the Basque Government took over the management of the prisons in Euskadi, it has opted to promote the third degree or semi-liberty so that at least 40% of the inmates (50% in the case of women) serve their sentences in open regime.

A percentage well above what is produced in the prisons dependent on the Ministry of the Interior, where just before the summer the prisoners in the third degree stood at 18% of the total prison population.

During this time, the Department of Justice, after receiving the proposal from the Treatment Boards ―a body made up of prison professionals―, has granted 32 semi-liberties to ETA inmates.

"These inmates have been in prison for more than 23 years on average,"

sources from the Urjullo Executive stand out.

Of all of them, the Prosecutor's Office has appealed 24, according to the AVT, including the six admitted by the judge that have led to the revocation of semi-liberties.

In another four cases, the magistrate has confirmed the decision of the Basque Government.

Before transferring the management of the prisons to the Basque Government, the Ministry of the Interior had granted the semi-liberty regime to another 27 prisoners of the terrorist organization, of which the justice system revoked the decision in only three cases.

In addition, the justice then granted two third degrees that Interior had rejected.

In March 2019, the judge advanced Pedro Pikabea Ugalde to third grade as a step prior to his release on probation.

In January 2021, he gave it to Antonio Troitiño for humanitarian reasons given the seriousness of the disease he suffered.

In the Basque prisons there will be, when the latest transfers announced last week materialize, 145 of the 176 ETA inmates who remain in prisons in Spain.