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The case continued, even with hearings in Easter. We went to the court on Wednesday, 23 March. In the basement of one of the most featured buildings in Génova street, the trial against over forty Basque youths charged with taking active part in the Basque youth pro-independence organisations, Jarrai, Haika and Segi, which, according to the prosecution acted under the political leadership of the Basque armed organisation Euskadi Ta Askatasuna, ETA (Basque Country and Freedom)

In Basement 1 of the court specialising in trying people charged with crimes of terrorism, regardless of where they allegedly committed the crimes, the trial part of case 18/01 continued. It was time for the expert evidence, time for experts from the Guardia Civil, the Policía Nacional, and the Centro Nacional de Inteligencia, to explain their theory that they are convinced that the young boys and girls sitting there took part, directly, in organising the Basque left-wing nationalist movement.

The sentence requests hanging over these young men and women, 10 to 14 years in jail, thanks to the application of the aprioristic garzonian theory and the design of the antiterrorist pact between ZP-PP, whereby “it is all part of ETA”, cannot be justified in our opinion, by the factual account that is coming out of the proceedings.

On the holy Wednesday, there were fewer people in Basement Nº1, but the defendants were able to feel the warmth of their loved ones again. friends and relatives were there, yet another day. There was only a session during the morning and it was a never-ending assessment of the expert witnesses’ reports, with questions from the prosecution attempting to distort the replies given by the defendants during the early days of the trial, denying the charges brought by the prosecution.

The expert witnesses, hidden from view by a screen in one side of the bullet proof “fish-tank”, talk about their undercover activities, following the defendants to the offices of political parties, tapping the telephones at their parents homes, or their mobile phones and the phones at the offices of political organisations, watching their attendance at meetings with other people or groups, controlling their participation in various demonstrations and protests, against precarious employment and lack of safety at work, for Euskara (the Basque language), in support of the squatters movement, the student movement, against repression and ill treatment, against criminalisation of young people, in demand of housing, etc.

One of the judges in the tribunal, sitting on the left side for the public, has been caught unawares (it is becoming usual) by Morpheus and has begun visibly nodding off, very nearly hitting his head off the table after the hand he was using to hold his head up, in an attempt to cover up his flirting with the god of sleep, slipped from under his chin.

The account given by the expert witnesses of the telephone surveillance (euphemism used to describe the police tapping a citizen’s telephone line) is clarifying. 20th September, 2000. “Defendant X calls defendant Y to remind her that she has left the keys to the office in the bar next door, that they have arranged to meet at 5 o’clock to make the banner and to tell defendant Z”. 30 October, 2000. “Defendant R calls defendant L at home to remind him that they have to pay the rent for the offices”. 15 November 2000. “Defendant J calls defendant M at home to see if he has already ordered the raffle tickets for fund raising in the campaign against temporary work agencies. He says they will be ready tomorrow”. 17 November 2000, “Defendant P calls defendant Q to arrange to see her at a meeting at the Gaztetxe to decide on action to be taken upon eviction”. 10 December 2000, “Defendant C calls the office and talks to unidentified person despite surveillance operative and tells him he has spoken to Betagarri and they have confirmed they will play at the solidarity concert in January”. 12 January 2001, “Defendant S calls defendant T to tell him he has already made the drinks order for the stall at the fiesta in their neighbourhood. He says it will be delivered on the eve of the fiesta and he must have the money ready for delivery”. The above account, although not exact as to the dates, is a real reproduction of the data obtained through spying and recounted by the expert police witnesses. The police account proves the defendants’ social involvement and activism in their villages and neighbourhoods, but nothing more. The account of the events would prove that much, but, in my opinion, nothing further. The witnesses’ conviction that the said political activity was ordered by ETA is part of the political drive of the aprioristic thesis designed ad hoc at the higher echelons of power.

As the session drags on, a playful Morpheus refuses to leave the courtroom and continues to intoxicate the chosen judge; try as he may (changing the hand with which he hold his chin up, hand over his eyes, stretching his neck and blinking, etc.) he cannot avoid nodding his head with the drowsy movement induced by Hypnos’ son.

On Monday, 28th March, while the proceedings against the young Basques continue in basement Nº 1 of the court buildings on Génova street; on the surface, the police have detected a suspicious group of people loitering outside. They are identified immediately and their ID card numbers will serve to increase the list of controlled individuals. After they are identified, the people stand close to the court buildings before moving into other hostile parts of the city. The anti-riot police carry out an enveloping manoeuvre and place their vehicles so that they obtain a ghetto effect for the surrounded group. Passers by observe a group of people surrounded and watched by the police. The criminalising effect is thus achieved. The group of people were there because they have relatives and friends on trial inside, or because friends or relatives had been recently arrested and were being held. What was their crime, to make them be treated so by the police? The officer in charge of the police operative informs the objective has been fulfilled, “the Basques are controlled and identified”.

In the street, the Spanish democracy demands ID cards and controls a suspicious group of Basques whose friends and relatives are under arrest or on trial at the Audiencia Nacional.

In the basement of the Audiencia Nacional, the Spanish democracy puts Basque youths on trial, charged with being members of organisations in the Basque pro-independence left wing movement.

José Manuel Hernández de la Fuente. Lawyer and member of the International Jurists Commission Against the Criminalisation of Ideas in the Basque Country.
31st March, 2005. Madrid