The Department of Memory and Coexistence of the Government of Navarra has approved the first recognitions of victims of politically motivated acts caused by far-right groups or public officials. The Recognition and Reparation Commission of the Navarrese Parliament proposed the recognitions, whose objective is to achieve reparation for people who died or were injured—physically and psychologically—by violent, disproportionate and illegitimate actions in the aforementioned victimological context. In this first phase, four other applications have been inadmissible. The commission has been working for the last year on the analysis of the more than seventy applications received. The experts are now studying some sixty files that are in different phases of the procedure. As the SER network in Navarra has learned, among the people officially recognized as victims are Mikel Arregui and Mikel Zabalza.
The provincial government has already communicated the resolutions to the families without making the names public, but it has detailed the status of the cases of two people who died as a result of different types of violence, three people injured by firearms of varying degrees during the Saint Fermín 1978 and another victim who suffered serious damage due to excess or misuse of riot control material in a police charge in a later temporal context. To these victims we must add four other people who suffered physical and psychological violence during their detention and two other people who were injured in separate attacks claimed by far-right groups. Two of the twelve victims are women and almost all the cases occurred in the Navarrese mugas - except for Mikel Zabalza. Chronologically, these twelve cases extend from 1969 to 1994. In addition to official recognition, families will also be able to receive health care, financial compensation for physical and/or psychological and material damages. These financial compensations are calculated according to tables established by law and are equal to that received, for example, by victims of ETA terrorism. To make them effective, an economic item has been included in the General Budget of Navarra for 2024.
Mikel Zabalza, a native of Orbaiceta, was arrested on November 26, 1985 in Donosti along with his cousin and two other people. The next day it was reported that Mikel Zabalza had disappeared. The official version of the Civil Guard is that he escaped by jumping into the Bidasoa River when he was guiding several agents to the location of a cache. The testimonies of those who were detained with him point to the possibility that Zabalza had died after suffering torture - the bag or the bathtub. They found his body on December 15 in the riverbed. Since then, his family has demanded justice. The Basque Government has already recognized him as a victim of politically motivated violence. Now, and according to the documentation to which Cadena SER has had access, the commission has officially recognized Mikel Zabalza (Miguel Ángel Zabalza Garate) as a politically motivated victim, considering that he meets the requirements set by the law. forum that regulates the commission. They consider it proven that the violent actions that caused his death are within the determined time frame, that public officials intervened in said actions and that the victim had the official status of Navarrese - although the events took place in Guipúzcoa. The commission also recognizes that public officials “acted with abuse of power and exceeding their functions, under a context of impunity that prevented an adequate judicial investigation of the events in question and the punishment of the guilty, as well as the recognition and reparation of the victim and his dignity.” For this reason, it has been determined that financial compensation -115,000 euros- will be granted to the family.
Mikel Arregui, a native of Lakuntza, where he worked as a councilor, was traveling in a vehicle with four other friends. In the early morning of November 11, 1979, near Etxarri Aranatz, the Civil Guard shot at the vehicle. Arregi, 32, was shot to death. The commission has officially recognized Arregi as a politically motivated victim, considering that the events are within the determined time frame, that public officials intervened and that the damage occurred in Navarrese territory and against a person from the area. In this case, the commission also recognizes that public officials abused their power and exceeded “their functions, under a context of impunity that prevented an adequate judicial investigation of the events in question and the punishment of the guilty, as well as the recognition and reparation of the victim and their dignity.” For all this, they grant the family compensation of 238,000 euros.
Recognition and Reparation Commission
The twelve approved cases have been evaluated by the Recognition and Reparation Commission, made up of the director of Memory and Coexistence, the director of the Navarro Institute of Memory, two forensic experts and a psychologist with experience in matters of victims, appointed by the Navarro Institute of Legal Medicine. Furthermore, at the proposal of the Parliament of Navarra, it is completed by four experts from the academic and social fields. This body was established within the framework of Foral Law 16/2019, of March 26. This legal text was appealed by the central government before the Constitutional Court, which ended up declaring the conformity of the regional norm with the Magna Carta (rulings 108/2021, of May 13 and 135/2021, of June 24).
What affects the most is what happens closest. So you don't miss anything, subscribe.
Subscribe
_