Main piece of the Case 18/98:

Trial in Court, chronology

Word document with the summaries of the oral hearings referring to the Main Piece of the Trial

Comittal of the Case 18/98 (in spanish)
Prosecution request (in spanish)


The sessions of the trial are every week, on Monday morning and afternoon, Tuesday morning and afternoon and Wednesday morning.




14/03/07
Sessions 198 and 199
The oral proceedings finish with a rousing “Gora Euskal Herria askatuta!"

Iñigo Iruin provided the closing statements for the defence in this trial, and the attorney set aside his final words to explain that he was to have defended in that courtroom Jokin Gorostidi, who had passed away in spring last year of heart failure, one day before he was to testify in court. Iruin stated that the prosecution accused the historical nationalist militant of a “crime of integration” for his work on behalf of deported Basque politicians and for his travels to the ends of the earth to try to improve the living conditions of these people. Iruin poignantly quoted the words of Gorostidi: he “had been given two death sentences in the Proceso de Burgos” [a famous trial towards the end of the Franco dictatorship in 1969] and 35 years later he had once again been “abducted” by “the Spanish State’s war strategy in indictment 18/98”. The veteran Basque nationalist demanded the Basque Country’s right to voice and vote and warned that until this happened, “we will not be silenced”.

Iruin, after reading the final words of this person who was also his friend, stated that if Gorostidi had been in the room, he would have also expressed his “pride” in sharing the dock with the rest of the prisoners. “This pride is also shared by these nine legal representatives, who have taken on the defence of all of these people and which we would do again as a sign of our fondness and solidarity with them,” Iruin went on to say. You may absolve them or condemn them, but what you cannot escape is the fact that a large part of Basque society have seen in these people an example to be followed in defence of rights.”

The presiding judge Angela Murillo ordered a recess upon witnessing the defendants’ applause of the attorney’s words. Upon returning, the defendants themselves were allowed to exercise their right to their final words. All of them echoed the sentiments expressed in Jokin Gorostidi’s final words.

The presiding judge then suspended proceedings for later sentencing, upon which the defendants shouted the final “Gora Euskal Herria askatuta!” which marked the end of this trial.


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13/03/07
Sessions 196 and 197
Goirizelaia called for “fair justice which can only lead to acquittal”

The attorney made note of the particular point of view that the supporters of this trial “have regarding the Basque conflict and their way of dealing with it” in reference to the disparity in interpretations of different facts throughout the trial. In effect, she reasoned that instead of judging criminal acts, the prosecutor was really asking the judges to “mete out punishment for work in favour of dialogue and understanding” carried out by the accused.

With regard to the Xaki European Association, Goirizelaia informed the court that the Spanish Supreme Court, the High Court of Justice of the Basque Country and the fourth circuit of the National Court itself had ruled out any criminal act on their part.

Goirizelaia explained that this European Association was registered as such in Lakua and its purpose was to publicise the Basque Country’s situation around the world and promote fraternal relations with other peoples. “What is on trial, no matter how the Ministry wants to dress it up,” is their work in the area of international relations. “The Spanish state have always been afraid that outside of their borders the international community finds out what is happening in the Basque Country and obtains information on a model solution based on the respect for rights described by the people on trial,” indicated the attorney, who believed that the purpose of the operation was to put an end to their work in the area of providing information.

Kepa Landa’s intervention wound up by thanking the defendants for their confidence in him and reminding the court that “this has been more than a trial, it has been much more than legal proceedings against a number of people, therefore one identifies with them much more.” “In this court, the rights and freedoms of a nation have been under assault. This is my nation and these are my people.”


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12/03/07
Sessions 194 and 195
Elosua: the prosecution has developed a strategy to “hide, distort and contradict” the truth about Zumalabe

In their interventions regarding the Joxemi Zumalabe foundation, the attorneys made note of the lack of incriminating evidence throughout the oral proceedings, denouncing “a hodgepodge of contradictions, half-truths and discriminatory treatment” toward the defendants by the prosecutor. Counsel Elosua also criticised the prosecution’s strategy of “confusing and distorting” the facts presented in the trial in support of the charges against them.

In this vein they reminded the court that the Spanish police’s own Central Intelligence Unit confirmed the defence’s argument regarding the activities carried out by the foundation. Even the Spanish police officer who acted as spokesperson admitted that the content of the report must have been modified. “For that reason there was not even the slightest mention of any proof, not even that which they had proposed,” indicated the attorney, regarding the final report exhibited by the prosecution.

The lawyer also denounced the fact that all of the foundation’s communications had been intercepted by the Spanish police over the course of two years, in addition to the police’s confiscating of all of their documentation — minutes of meetings, internal debates, etc. Nevertheless, “the state prosecution had everything they needed to present the court with the reality of the Joxemi Zumalabe Foundation, but they did not because they chose not to.” “They closed their eyes to any reality that did not match their version,” he charged.

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09/03/07
Sessions 192 and 193


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08/03/07
Sessions 190 and 191


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07/03/07
Sessions 188 and 189

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06/03/07
Sessions 186 and 187

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05/03/07
Sessions 184 and 185


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27/02/07
Sessions 182 and 183
Report on conclusions by the AVT (Asociación Víctimas del Terrorismo [Association for Victims of Terrorism]): longer sentences

Attorneys Emilio Murcia and Carlos Rodríguez Segura, speaking for the civil case brought by the Association for Victims of Terrorism, read from their reported conclusions. In it, they echoed the main arguments brought by the prosecutor, but maintained their two initial demands, one being a conviction for the crime of ‘membership in a terrorist organisation’ for those where the prosecution had reduced their request to ‘collaboration’, the other being conviction for money-related crimes that Inland Revenue agents themselves had found to be groundless.

With regard to the contents, they referred to what they labelled as ETA’s “financial apparatus, the intermediary apparatus and the external-relations apparatus.” They considered that “it has been proven that there exists a financial apparatus that, through the KAS organisation, has financed the entire terrorist plot”, while affirming that the newspaper Egin and its publishing company Orain “were linked to ETA.” The AVT representatives also declared that the reporting line of the newspaper was tantamount to an “external Political Council” outside of the bounds of the Administrative Council, and that some of the accused acted as “political commissioners delegated by the military apparatus.” Regarding the part of Ekin, they simply referred to the “abundant documentary evidence available” that not even the prosecutor was able to present (Molina admitted that he has very little information on this organisation), while accusing the Joxemi Zumalabe Foundation of “subverting the constitutional order as a matter of routine.”

They deemed the testimony regarding torture as having no credibility, basing their line of accusation on the testimony of Alegria, Egibar and Txapartegi.

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26/02/07
Sessions 180 and 181
The prosecution wind up their allegations today

Yesterday the prosecutor concluded his report defending the validity of the evidence presented by his side. He thus justified the legitimacy of the declarations obtained from the accused while in police custody, in spite of the reports of extreme torture brought to the court by accused. The prosecutor took refuge in the fact that no sentence has been handed down against the civil guards and police that tortured the accused to confirm the validity of these allegations. “It is up to the court to decide whether these statements were made voluntarily.” He also made a case for the expert and scientific nature of the statements provided by the Spanish civil guards and police that testified in the proceedings.

He repeated the theory that has been waved around for some years now. He also mentioned the latest sentence from the Supreme Court in the Jarrai-Haika-Segi case to maintain that these are the goals and objectives of an organisation which define its “terrorist character”, adding that “the concept of terrorism is not always identified with an armed organisation per se.” Based on this, he stated that although neither KAS, nor the intermediary front [which is how the prosecutor refers to Egin] nor Ekin nor Xaki are armed organisations, they participated in the unitary organisation” made up by ETA.

For this reason, Molina asked the judges to declare these organisations to be “illicit”, and to order their dissolution, along with that of the businesses mentioned in the indictment. The prosecutor did not include the Joxemi Zumalabe Foundation in this request, accusing its members of the crime of collaboration. Enrique Molina finished his lengthy allocution asking the court for a guilty verdict for the 52 people still under indictment.

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20/02/07
Session 179
The prosecutor considers it a crime to be a member of the independentist left

For a person to be “meaningful” or “referential” in the independentist left is in itself a reason for suspicion for the prosecution in the Spanish national court. Enrique Molina in proceedings against several of those who were part of indictment 18/98 the fact that they had attended open meetings of Batasuna or Jarrai, had travelled to Brussels as part of a march organised by the pro-amnesty movement, and even having acted as electoral agent for EHAK in the 2005 elections.

With regard to Mario Zubiaga, lecturer at the Basque Public University and member of the Joxemi Zumalabe Foundation, he indicated that he “is an important point of reference in the Basque independentist left”, that he “is worldly and highly-educated”, and that he gives lessons on civil disobedience as part of “putting into practice ETA’s strategy of disobedience”. For this he requested seven years of imprisonment. Although he admitted during the trial that Zubiaga had given civil disobedience a light and indirect mention, the prosecutor considered that this “should not blur” the court’s decision to, obviously, hand down the requested sentence.

With reference to the Xaki piece, he mentioned statements made by Mikel Egibar during his arrest by the Civil Guard and during which he later claimed to have suffered torture. Based on these statements he maintained charges against Egibar himself, Joxe Mari Olarra and Nekane Txapartegi.
Magistrate Póveda’s illness put the finishing touch on the day’s events.

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19/02/07
Sessions 177 and 178
The prosecutor begins reading his closing arguments

After prosecution and defence exhibited their written closing arguments last week, the trial for indictment 18/98 began reading the reports, in which the two sides will give a detailed review of what has been brought to light in the opinion of each during the trial.

During his turn, the prosecutor gave his opinion on the intense solidarity among those indicted to establish the fact that they have a relationship and are of a single mind. “This court will have witnessed the organisational cohesion found among the accused, who support each other, coordinate with each other and feel solidarity amongst one another. Although they belong to different organisations, they coordinate with each other to an extent that would be admirable among other groups.”

After this he once again repeated the idea that he had endeavoured to communicate to the court, affirming that “ETA is a terrorist organisation which is not merely an armed organisation, which maintains “unity in its criminal activity” in which the “different organisations by sector act in a coordinated and synchronised manner.”

He then recited a brief and specific review of the history of ETA, to wind up his statements on the organisations and businesses that are on trial, and to recount the charges brought against them: KAS would be an “instrument” used by ETA for “direction of the movement”, which, at the same time, would control a business scheme dedicated to maintaining ETA members abroad” and members of KAS itself. Ekin, according to this theory, would have been created to “replace” KAS; Xaki would be the latest version of “ETA’s external relations”; and the Joxemi Zumalabe Foundation would have taken the baton from ASK to continue to “invigorate the popular movement”. Finally, Egin and its publishing company Orain S.A. would make up ETA’s “intermediary front” or “fourth front”.

At this point, the representative of the Attorney General had no other choice than to admit that the written charges contained serious errors, and that several of the charges against the accused had no legal foundation. Nevertheless, he concluded that participating in any of these organisations is at the same time to be an active member of ETA due to the “divisional theory”. “All of the structures participating in that global structure” which for him is the nationalist left “are contaminated with the goals and objectives” of ETA.

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12/02/07
Sessions 175 and 176
The defence for indictment 18/98 enters a plea of not guilty for all charged

The defence presented their written closing arguments in which, with a profusion of data and constant references to what was seen and heard during oral proceedings, rejected the prosecution’s arguments to request that all those charged be fully cleared of all charges.

They considered that during the oral proceedings lasting 16 months, no “evidence of a crime” was presented. The attorneys presented the court with the main arguments from their extensive, 329-page written arguments, in which they refute the prosecution’s arguments, in both their general theory as well as in the individual charges.

The defence start off by examining the chapter on the “structure of ETA and the origin and evolution of the Koordinadora Abertzale Sozialista (KAS)", and indicating that “there is no truth to the notion that all of the organisations, associations, etc. that the prosecutions places within the orbit of the Basque independentist left, make up a single organisation subordinate to ETA and directed by ETA.” Regarding this argument they consider that “its origin arises from extrajudicial and biased spheres of activity, widely broadcast starting in the 1990s by certain media organisations. In this respect, the defence attorneys argue that “this broad statement (everything is ETA) which the charges are based upon, have no foundation in the historical truth or in the sociological truth, and are merely an artificial construction.”

Further on, the document argues that the so-called “Udaletxe Project”, which would justify the existence of a common source of financing, is nothing more than “an invention by the police, whose existence was never proven in the oral proceedings”, according to the defence’s conclusions.

In reference to the Orain publishing company and the Egin newspaper, the defence discusses the communicative functions carried out by the newspaper in its over twenty years of existence, along with the financial matters under indictment in the court, to conclude that there was no criminal activity in its functions as a newspaper or in its management as a business, reiterating that there was an agreement with the General Treasury of Social Security, which demonstrated a lack of intent to commit any sort of fraud.

With regard to Ekin, they state that this is a “new organisational experience”, which arose after careful consideration of the wants and needs of the nationalist left in different areas, and argue that this was not intended to be a substitute for KAS.

As for the Joxemi Zumalabe Foundation, in addition to proving that it had nothing to do with ASK, the attorneys denied that they could have initiated a “civil-disobedience project for ETA”, which would have been a contradiction.

Finally, with regard to the part of the Xaki European Association, the defence remarked that the prosecution maintains a theory on ETA’s international relations since ETA has had its own activity in this area carried out by its own members, so it would not make sense for this activity to be delegated to Xaki. They also denounce the fact that most of the charges in this area are based on statements extracted under torture.

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06/02/07
Sessions 173 and 174
The State Prosecutor reduces his sentence request
He asks for almost 500 year imprisonment

The Audiencia Nacional Prosecutor, Enrique Molina, backed by the Audiencia Nacional Prosecutor General, Javier Zaragoza, explained his conclusions whereby he is still maintaining that all the organisations on trial in this case and others are dependant on and obey ETA. He is also asking for the defendants to be sentenced to periods ranging between 4 and 19 years in jail, depending on whether he has charged them with “cooperation” or “integration”. The defendants charged because of their link to the Board of Directors of the newspaper Egin are the ones facing the longest terms in jail. When the Prosecutor was first asking for 927 years imprisonment, now he is asking for 484. Pepe Uruñuela is the only person whom the Prosecutor asks to be acquitted.

The lawyer prosecuting on behalf of the AVT backed the Prosecutor’s request.

As to the contents of the Prosecutor’s report regarding each of the organisations on trial, he will hold that, based on what has been said during the Trial, in the Egin Case, “ETA took over the newspaper for its mass front, to use it as anaesthesia from the murders for the masses close to the BNLM”. As to Ekin, Molina admits that it had a public presence and activity, but he insists that it followed ETA’s orders and because it had “careful security measures in place, in order to prevent a possible criminalisation of its activities”. The Prosecutor argued that ETA has “international relations” since 1964 and since 1996; the association Xaki took on that responsibility, specifically to “disseminate the Democratic Alternative, seeking international backing for talks”. Finally, he linked the Joxemi Zumalabe Foundation to TA, saying its remit was to “develop the track of civil disobedience”.

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05/02/07
Sessions 171 and 172
Following the documentary evidence of the private prosecution, the tape recordings were heard

During this session the documents requested by the private prosecution, acting on behalf of the Asociación de Víctimas del Terrorismo, were read out. After this the Court went on to listen to the recordings of phone conversations of the defendants, which the State Prosecutor, Enrique Molina, requested. The defence ascertained that the selected recordings did not correspond to the list they had been given and objected o the Prosecutor’s actions, saying they were “irregular and illegal”. They also denounced the fact that many parts of these phone taps were intimate and personal and they added nothing to the trial.

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30/01/07
Session 170
Reading of the documentary evidence requested by the State Prosecutor ends

The reading of the documents the State Prosecution brought as evidence has taken eight sessions. These sessions have added nothing new, excepting the repeated objections by the defence, because there is no record of the origin of the reports and texts read out. These sessions have added to the burden on the defendants who have already had to travel thousands of kilometres, week after week, to withstand the reading out of hundreds of documents and listening to some fifty tapes.


29/01/07
Sessions 168 and 169
Recorded telephone conversations are played back

24/01/07
Session 167
Reading of documentary evidence is concluded

23/01/07
Sessions 165 and 166
Continuation of reading documentary evidence

22/01/07
Sessions 163 and 164
Documentary evidence is read

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17/01/07
Session 162
The Tribunal trying Case 18/98 accepts different translations from documents in Basque

The defence had to impugn the translation of several documents included in Case 18/98 again because, on the one hand, the people doing the translation into Spanish have not proved they are adequately qualified to do this and because these people have attended the Trial and are therefore biased in their work. In addition to this, mistaken and misleading translations carried out by the Guardia Civil and the Policia Nacional have already been included in the Case files. The Chair of the Tribunal, Angela Murillo, accepted the defence’s challenge.

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16/01/07
Sessions 160 and 161
Defendants give reports on torture to the judges and the State Prosecutor

It is worth highlighting the prominent role of the defendants during this session, when they directly gave the Tribunal and the State Prosecutor several reports by international bodies about torture in the Spanish state and the attitude of successive Spanish governments towards the complaints contained in those reports and the recommendations made. The reports were by the UN Special Rapporteur on the Question of Torture, the UN Committee Against Torture, the Council of Europe Committee for the Prevention of Torture and the Commissioner for Human Rights of the Council of Europe, as well as by NGOs such as Amnesty International, the World Organisation Against Torture (OMCT) or the TAT. With this action, the defendants wished to denounce the fact that this Trial is according validity to statements obtained under torture and therefore legitimising the use of torture.

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15/01/07
Sessions 158 and 159
Documentary evidence phase of the trial begins

The coming sessions will review and read the various pieces of documentary evidence included in the Case Files. Today, the statements made by Mikel Egibar in Guardia Civil custody and before the judge were brought up. Mikel Egibar issued a complaint for torture while in custody.

The defence lawyers made a submission challenging the list of documents to be read out proposed by the Prosecution because in some cases this meant incorporating “new evidence” as well as because of a number of irregularities such as lack of dates of the reports of entry and search of premises, translation certificates… The Chair of the Tribunal ignored this submission.

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09/01/07
Sessions 156 and 157
The Prosecutor proposes a new list of documents and recordings be brought in

At the beginning of the hearing today the defendants expressed their disagreement with their being made to attend the reading of over one thousand pages of documents and listen to innumerable recordings of phone conversations.

Precisely, State prosecutor Enrique Molina gave the Tribunal a new list of the documents incorporated into the Case which he wants to be reading the coming weeks. The defence insisted that the Prosecutor was “proposing new evidence” in an irregular way in terms of procedure and in an in appropriate way. Therefore, they requested an adjournment of at least a week in order to analyse the Prosecutor’s list and decide their position in regard to this. After a long meeting between the lawyers and the Tribunal, after the session, the Trial was adjourned until Monday 15th January.

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08/01/07
Sessions 154 and 155
The defence relinquishes their expert witnesses

As we wrote in previous summaries, the statements from the expert witnesses called by the Prosecution destroyed the arguments of the Prosecution. Therefore, the defence decided to relinquish their right to call their own expert witnesses and bring up their own documents, as in their view “the defendants are convinced that result which is favourable to them has come out of these proceedings, in other words, the appearance of expert witnesses called by the Prosecution has thrown up a clearly negative result for the Prosecutor”. Therefore, the defence called on the Prosecutor to do likewise and relinquish the documentary evidence phase of the Trial, so as to get to the stage of summing up and final conclusions.

In addition, they called on the Prosecutor to bear in mind the criteria set by the Audiencia Nacional Prosecution service regarding the Egunkaria Case and “proceed to drop all charges and thus bring about an acquittal of all defendants”. Precisely, Prosecutor Miguel Angel Carballo gave a number of legal arguments on December 14, 2006 in order to request Proceedings 44/04, regarding Egunkaria, be shelved. Thus, the defence believes the current 18/98 Case has “the very same structure and nature as the Egunkaria Case, in which Prosecutor Carballo expressed his “complete disagreement with the interpretation criteria used by the Guardia civil and the investigating judge”. He added that the Prosecution itself considered that the evidence brought in that case “cannot establish that the defendants are involved in an illegal organisation, even less in a terrorist organisation”.

Enrique Molina did not attend the request by the defence and decided to go ahead with the documentary evidence phase of the trial, which will begin today, with the reading out of the thousands of pages of documents he has brought into the Case.

This will mean that thousands of pages will have to be read out and hours of phone tap recordings will have to be listened to. Therefore, the defence asked the special Tribunal in charge of this trial to excuse the defendants from being present, a load they have had to carry for thirteen months, saying their presence was not necessary and their not attending these sessions would not cause defencelessness. Angela Murillo, in yet another show of authoritarianism, opposed this. “We’re in no hurry” she added.

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18/12/2006
Session 153
The State Prosecutor admits mistakes in his report

The three final expert witnesses called by the Prosecution were three Social Security technicians. In this session, Enrique Molina admitted that the economic crimes the Egin directors are charged with are all based on mistaken premises, so he dropped the charges linked to the debt with the Social Security.

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13/12/2006
Session 152
The Treasury expert witnesses point out serious mistakes in the Prosecutor’s report

The civil servants from the Treasury (Ministerio de Hacienda) appearing as expert witnesses admitted that at the time of writing their reports they did not know the content, or indeed they did not know of the existence, of documents that were favourable to the defence. In addition, they corrected several matters included by the Prosecutor in his initial submission and they rejected several of the accusations brought by the prosecution in this Case.

Iñigo Iruin highlighted the fact that in their report these expert witnesses indicated that, in this case, the defendants cannot be simultaneously charged with a crime of punishable insolvency -fraudulent conveyance- and a tax crime, because they are “mutually excluding”, so that they could be charged with one or the other, but not both. “This is our criterion”, said the civil servants. Their criterion, however, is not being followed by the prosecutor, as he is charging five of the defendants with both crimes at the same time. Furthermore, the civil servants corroborated the idea that, based on the data given by the defence, the publishing company had no intent to avoid paying taxes. The expert witnesses were surprised upon seeing the profit and losses balance, which they looked through for quite some time. “Had you examined these documents before?” asked the defence lawyer. “No, we had not seen these documents” replied the Treasury expert. A similar thing happened with the VAT debt. “That makes no sense” they stated when they heard of the numbers being used by the prosecution in this matter.

One of the civil servants confessed that if he had been aware of many of these documents (which were public, but have now been brought in by the defence) his conclusions “would have to be qualified”.

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12/12/2006
Sessions 150 and 151
According to the Court Administrator the closure ordered by Garzón caused the bankruptcy of Egin

Lawyer José María Elosua requested the Court Administrator for Egin, who is appearing as an expert witness in the Trial, be shown a report with the financial state and the balance of Orain on December 31, 1998, which the said Administrator had written. Antonio López Iranzo admitted that when Baltasar Garzón ordered its closure, the newspaper was in good enough condition to continue normally with its activity and that it was the closure order that led the journalistic project to bankruptcy. When Baltasar Garzón ordered the closure of those companies, he caused them to go bankrupt and prevented, with his expressly implemented cautionary measures, this newspaper from seeing the light again.

In one year of Court Administration a deficit of millions was generated and the newspaper had gone from being solvent to being completely insolvent. The expert witness admitted that “obviously, a substantial part of that deficit was originated by the inactivity of the companies, with all its consequences”. “An important part of the imbalance was caused by that Court decision”.

When he finished, the civil servants from the Treasury began their appearance in court. They spoke of “irregularities” in Egin accounting. However, following questions by the defence they admitted they did not know about part of the documents the UCI and the judge provided and they said several of those documents may be relevant: “we don’t know, because we have not seen them”.

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11/12/2006
Sessions 148 and 149
Beginning of cross examination on economic questions

In this macro-case, the economic charges brought by the State Prosecution are the ones that amount the heaviest sentence requests, but the Audiencia Nacional is trying these aspects only because they are accessory to the main charge of “membership of an armed group”.

The first expert witness to declare on the economic and commercial issues included in the Case was the Court Administrator for Egin. Antonio López Iranzo was designated by Judge Baltasar Garzón to fulfil this role, consisting in substituting the Board of Directors whilst the newspaper was intervened, particularly, to safeguard its interests. Nevertheless, he stated that Garzón expressly prevented him from carrying out any actions to preserve Egin’s assets, which caused the newspaper’s debt to increase while the paper was under his administration. He also admitted that he did nothing to recover what the paper was owed and the insisted that, contrary to the word of the law, he safeguarded “the interests of the State” and not the newspaper’s interests.

Lawyer Alvaro Reizabal denounced the fact that Orain was made to pay out millions, many of them to the Social Security, due to the lack of action of the administrator who did not attend meetings or give evidence to counteract demands by creditors. The Court Administrator even admitted he had don nothing at all to reimburse amounts Egin was owed, which would have reduced a large part of the debt.

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05/12/06
Sessions 146 and 147
Cross examination of the UCI (Central Investigation Unit) “expert” witnesses finishes; they continue to contradict the Prosecution’s thesis

During the month that the Policia Nacional “expert” witnesses have been cross examined, the bias and the incompetence with which they wrote their reports has become obvious. Superintendent 19242 admitted basic mistakes and that translations of documents from the Basque had not been done by anyone minimally qualified to do so. The defence brought up clear examples of this flawed translation, also proving that the “expert” police translators had changed the meaning of several sentences in crucial documents used to support the charges, so that entire paragraphs ended up saying the exact opposite to their original meaning.

But even the highly questionable views of these “expert” witnesses, their subjective interpretations, also ended up contradicting the arguments of the Prosecution: “not all KAS activists are members of ETA” adding that they did not know which ones were ETA members.

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04/12/06
Sessions 144 and 145
The UCI admits they cannot establish “Eneko’s” identity

As happened previously in the case of Xabier Alegria and his alleged alias “Garikoitz”, the UCI was not able to establish that Joxe Mari Olarra was the “Eneko” cited in several documents. During cross examination regarding the Xaki piece of the case (an organisation charged with being the “Foreign Affairs Ministry of ETA”), lawyer Iñigo Iruin obtained from the policemen the confession that they have no evidence to prove that Joxe Mari Olarra is the person that appears in the Case documents under the alias of “Eneko” who, according to the Prosecution, would have been in contact with the ETA leadership.

Iruin asked the UCI Superintendent: “Isn’t the identification of “Eneko” as Joxe Mari Olarra really an extremely open inference?” “Indeed, it is a rather open question” was his reply.

Mistakes in translation of documents from the Basque, gratuitous interpretation of acronyms, ambiguous use of events, such as Olarra taking part in the homecoming event for a Basque prisoner who died in the French state, in events against the Dam at Itoitz or the High Speed Train had been used to support the charges. The officer admitted that he could not prove the arguments of the Prosecution.

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29/11/06
Session 143
Zumalabe did not act under instructions from ETA

Out of a total of 27 minutes seized from the Board of the Joxemi Zumalabe Foundation, only five have been included in the Case documents; specifically, those in which the words “civil disobedience” appear.

One of the “expert” witnesses admitted that the UCI did this because they though the content of these documents would incriminate the defendants.

Indeed, the Spanish policemen base the idea that “the ETA-KAS civil disobedience project was taken on by the Joxemi Zumalabe Foundation” exclusively on these documents. This session’s work went over the content of these minutes.

The defence continued examination of the “expert” witnesses regarding the Joxemi Zumalabe Foundation, charged with “political leadership of the grassroots movement”. The defendants acknowledged that their work was to cooperate with all kinds of grassroots movements in the Basque Country, affording them legal counsel, cooperating to improve their public profile, putting the various groups in touch with each other… The witnesses said that this was precisely what they did and the phone taps and surveillance carried out during nine months back up that idea. The police witnesses explained that the Foundation’s sphere of work is diverse and includes hundreds of associations and groups “from parents’ groups, mountain clubs or platforms against waste incineration plants”. Thus, the UCI “expert” witness denied the Foundation was created to “direct the grassroots movement”, as the State Prosecution argues; rather, the officer said it had been created to cooperate with these organisations with very diverse roots, work methodology and funding systems. When lawyer Jose Mari Elosua asked if all this information was included in his report, officer 19242 admitted they had not.

In addition, he admitted that the funds to set up this project came from an inheritance Fernando Olalde received and that all their accounts were in order.

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28/11/06
Sessions 141 and 142
The CI admits that Ekin cannot be accused of any criminal actions

Although in their report the Spanish Police argue that Ekin succeeded KAS, a thesis that was also brought into question yesterday, and that its role was to act as “political commissars” and “delegates of ETA” in the organisations of the Basque pro independence left wing; this thesis was dismantled by the very “expert” witnesses for the Prosecution. During cross examination by the defence, the chief of the agents admitted he cannot accuse the defendants (charged with being members of the said political group, Ekin) of any criminal actions. He even admitted that the organisation Ekin itself cannot be accused of any concrete actions that may constitute a crime.

Furthermore, he stated that “there is no organic structure” linking Ekin to ETA, and he acknowledged that there are no elements whatsoever to link the defendants in this piece to the armed organisation.

The Prosecution also maintains that another function of Ekin was to apply “activities complementary to ETA’s activity”, among which they cited “controlling” the Basque Political Prisoners’ Collective or “setting up and initiating complementary violence”. However, throughout cross examination, the officer admitted they had no evidence that anyone carried out such activities due to their membership of Ekin or following orders from this organisation.

Following questions by the defence, the Police officer admitted that Ekin’s work began due to concerns inside the Basque pro independence left about a deficit in nation building work in the Basque Country, and that its aim was precisely to develop work in that sphere, from a global political outlook. Shortly later, this “expert” witness stated that the UCI “has not detected” any elements proving any “subordination” of Ekin with regard to the armed organisation.

The “expert” witnesses reached a similar conclusion after going over the supposedly criminal activities of each of the defendants in this piece.

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27/11/06
Session 139 and 140
Egin was on the road to sorting out its situation with the Social Security

The session focused on the Egin piece, specifically on the agreements reached between the daily newspaper and the Social Security in order to pay the debt the paper had incurred with this institution. The UCI agents admitted they had not included any data which may favour Egin in the police report that led to the closure of the newspaper and also admitted that such data would have changed the outcome of the report.

The “economic expert witness” had to face the evidence, as the defence lawyer requested a document signed by managers of the Social Security be read; this document explained that Orain SA had requested deferment of the payment of the debt and that the publishing company for Egin fulfilled the “necessary conditions” and that it “deserves a favourable report”. The UCI agents stated, only last week, that they did not know anything about this, which caused a big stir in the courtroom.

After this, lawyer Arantza Zulueta focused her questions on the figure of “Garikoitz”, whom the Spanish police say is Xabier Alegria. In fact in one of the police reports included in the Orain piece of the Case, it is said that “Garikoitz”, who according to the Prosecution was in contact with the political apparatus of ETA, would be “a non-identified member of KAS, possibly a member of the Orain Management Board”.

It turns out that none of the reports in any of the various pieces Alegria is charged under, the Orain piece and the Ekin piece, is he cited as being “Garikoitz”, and such a mention did not appear in the reports on his person either.

The “expert” witnesses were unable to provide any proof for this either.

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22/11/2006
Session 138
The “expert” witnesses prove themselves not to be independent and the Tribunal is forced to support them

The UCI officers are not contributing data which could inform the Tribunal about facts and thus aid the course of justice. They are following a pre-set script as was seen again during this session. The “expert” witnesses admitted they had not included the documents proving that Egin had reached an agreement with the Treasury of the Social Security in their report on the newspaper. In other words, they avoided including any elements which could support the defence’s version. They admitted this during cross-examination by defence lawyer Alvaro Reizabal, acknowledging they ignored all this information in the police report used to close Egin down, and that if the information had been included, the conclusions of the report would have been different. In addition, the UCI agents had to admit that they have no objective data which could allow them to say that Jabier Salutregi and Teresa Toda were appointed by ETA as Editor and vice-editor of Egin, as the Prosecution maintains. They were not able to prove that the Editor of the daily newspaper had a modem to communicate with the leadership of the armed organisation either, and they admitted that they have never found such a device in the offices of the newspaper.

Conscious of the relevance of this admission, one of the authors of the report attempted to correct himself later and the Chair of the Tribunal not only allowed him to do this, but also skipped all procedural guarantees to allow him to do this.

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21/11/2006
Sessions 136 and 137
One year since the trial began

On the day the trial entered its second year, corresponding to session Nº 136, according to the system we use for these summaries, the “expert” witnesses and