ETA convicts included in the lists of Bildu have served their disqualification sentences

"Absolute disqualification during the time of sentence". That is the phrase that is repeated repeatedly in many of the sentences against the 44 former members of the dissolved ETA – seven of them convicted of crimes of murder or homicide – who will attend the regional and municipal elections of May 28 in the candidacies of EH Bildu. His presence in the lists of the abertzale left, denounced on Tuesday by the Collective of Victims of Terrorism (Covite), has caused discomfort among the victims themselves and a huge political stir taken advantage of by the PP to charge against the PSOE of Pedro Sánchez, whom the abertzale formation has supported parliamentary. Another victims' association, Dignidad y Justicia, has even filed a complaint with the Prosecutor's Office, which has yet to analyze, to annul these candidacies if the General Electoral Law has finally been violated.

However, a report prepared by the Association of Victims of Terrorism (AVT) concludes that all of them can be candidates, since at present they no longer weigh any legal impediment for those convictions. The sentences of disqualification, absolute or special, imposed on them at the time by the courts have already been served. EL PAÍS has verified with judicial documents that this is the case, for example, with five of the seven convicted of murder or homicide. This circumstance distances the possibility of judicializing its presence in the lists of EH Bildu or, as Vox has proposed, studying the illegalization of the abertzale coalition.

The study prepared by the AVT details that of the 44 candidates indicated, there are two on whom there is no conviction. In one case, that of Adolfo Araiz Flamarique, spokesman for EH Bildu in the Parliament of Navarra in the legislature that is now ending and who is the number two of the party in this community in the next regional elections, because he has never been firmly convicted. In 1999, the Constitutional Court annulled the one imposed two years earlier by the Supreme Court as a member of the leadership of the former Herri Batasuna. The other is that of Sonia Respaldiza, who occupies the sixth place in the list of the formation to the mayor of Llodio (Álava). In her case, there is no judicial record that she was tried or convicted in any terrorism case, although her name appeared in a document seized from a former head of the terrorist organization.

Of the remaining 42 candidates, the analysis carried out by the association's legal team highlights that in the 25 in which it had access to the sentence, the disqualification sentence has already been served. In three others, handed down by French courts, this penalty was not even imposed. Of the other 14 candidates, the AVT admits not having accessed the document of the sentence that condemned them, but concludes that, due to the sentence imposed and the date on which it was issued, if absolute disqualification had been imposed "it would be fulfilled" and considers it "unlikely" that they would be punished with a special one for when they left prison.

In the case of the seven convicted of crimes of murder or manslaughter, the sentences to which this newspaper has had access confirm this point. Thus, Agustín Muiños Días, who concurs in the number six position of the list of EH Bildu to the mayor of Legutio (Álava), was sentenced in 1985 to 29 years in prison for the murder, in 1983, of the businessman José Antonio Julián Bayano. In the ruling, the magistrates stated that this penalty was accompanied by "absolute disqualification" during the time of execution of the same. In similar terms, the sentence condemning Juan Ramón Rojo González, number 1996 on the list for mayor of Irun (Gipuzkoa), to 55 years in prison for the murder of Francisco Gil Mendoza and the wounding of his brother in 21.

Lander Maruri Basagoiti ―second on the list for mayor of Zierbena (Bizkaia)― and Asier Uribarri Benito ―number four on the list for mayor of Maruri-Jatabe (Bizkaia)― were sentenced in 2001 to 16 years in prison each for their participation as accomplices in the murder, in 1997, of the civil guard José Manuel García Fernández. The ruling that convicted both also included the accessory penalty of absolute disqualification "during the time of sentence". The same expression is reflected in the sentence that condemned José Antonio Torre Altonaga, alias Medius, for his collaboration in the attack that cost the lives, in 1978, of two workers in the works of the Lemoniz nuclear power plant. Sentenced then to 20 years in prison, on May 28 he will be the second substitute of EH Bildu in the list to the mayor of Mungia (Bizkaia).

In the case of the other two candidates convicted of murder, Begoña Uzkudun Etxenagusia and Juan Carlos Arriaga Martínez, the AVT study points in the same direction. Uzkudun, who is number three on the list for mayor of Errezil (Gipuzkoa), received two convictions in 1989 that added up to more than 100 years in prison for two deadly attacks. In both sentences the disqualification was only during the maximum time of serving the sentence, then set at 30 years. The same applies to Arriaga, number three on the list for mayor of Berrioplano (Navarra), who was sentenced in 1989 to 29 years in prison for the murder in 1984 of businessman and retired Army commander Jesús Alcocer Jiménez.

Receive every afternoon the bulletin Diario de elecciones, written by the deputy director of EL PAÍS Claudi Pérez. Do you know how much your mayor charges? Find out here.

Subscribe to continue reading

Read without limits

Read more

I'm already a subscriber