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10.- Case 6/03. Udalbiltza

Appendix.- List of people defendands/prosecuted in the whole macro-proceedings

FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION AND OPINION AND THE RIGHT OF ASSOCIATION IN THE BASQUE COUNTRY. REPORT ON PROCEEDINGS 18/98 AND SUBSEQUENT PROCEEDINGS DEALING WITH BASQUE MEDIA, SOCIAL AND POLITICAL ORGANISATIONS.

This report, compiled by the Association of Basque Lawyers ESKUBIDEAK and the Basque Observatory for Human Rights BEHATOKIA, intends to provide basic information on the violations of freedom of expression and opinion and the right to freely associate in the Basque Country. At the root of this ongoing attack on these fundamental rights and liberties is the activity of Judge Baltasar Garzón, head of the Audiencia Nacional Central Investigation Court Nº5, who began what has become known as Case 18/98 and all its pieces and linked proceedings.

Throughout the following pages we wish to offer a glimpse of the blatant political motive behind the whole of the proceedings, the complete lack of independence in Garzón’s actions - which stem from a repression strategy designed by the government - as well as of the lack of the basic procedural guarantees in the actions by the Audiencia Nacional and the resulting defencelessness for the accused.

A. General Information:
Technical data and background to the cases.

The Case commonly known as 18/98 is not really a single case, it is not one set of criminal proceedings, rather, it is a whole host of legal proceedings made up of several cases and other pieces: Haika -Case 18/01-, Gestoras Pro Amnistía -Case 33/01-, Segi -Case 15/02-, Batasuna-Case 35/02-, Egunkaria, -Case 44/04- and Udalbiltza -Case 6/03-

Although formally they are independent from each other, all the said proceedings have the same characteristics, follow the same line of reasoning and, therefore, it is possible to define it as one single macro-case. There are a number of reasons for this macro case to be portrayed as a unity and to consider and analyse all the issues and actions within it as such. The main reasons are:

- Identical line of argument. The main reason for dealing with all the cases as one macro-case is that Judge Baltasar Garzón himself has dealt with the subject as a unity, with the same line of argument, one common thesis, for all his actions and injunctions; the thesis is that all those accused and the organisations, associations and political parties affected belong to ETA.

- The type of people charged with the alleged crimes. They all belong to political organisations or grassroots associations, in various fields of work –communication, social, political, cultural, in the field of human rights…- in the organisations affected, and they carried out their work publicly, transparently, and were usually well known for it.

- Identical judge/court. In every case, the actions were initiated by the judge at the Audiencia Nacional Central Investigation Court Nº5, Baltasar Garzón and he took on responsibility for the investigation. This is the consequence of a clear political will, insofar as the decision for this to be so –whether it was made at the Audiencia Nacional itself or at a Government level- while being apparently irrelevant, has driven all the said legal actions to be dealt with in this court. There is only one exception; the Egunkaria Case was initiated by Judge Juan del Olmo, the head of Central Investigation Court Nº6.

- Identical evidence. The main element of proof on which the Court bases its actions in what has been called the expert intelligence piece of evidence. These legal proceedings do not attempt to find evidence on clearly criminal events committed by unknown people. Quite to the contrary, the basis for the proceedings is a –conditioned and often incorrect- reinterpretation by the police of a large amount of documents, many of which were public.

The reason to diversify the proceedings into a number of cases can only be understood, as shall be explained in depth further on, due to the attempt by Baltasar Garzón to prevent –through the rules allotting cases- the appeals against his actions from being sent to the Fourth Section –S4- of the Audiencia Nacional Penal Court, as it had repeatedly rejected his line of argument and made decisions which were partially favourable to the appeals brought forward by the defences for these organisations, businesses, groups and people.

1.- Case 18/98
Main Piece: Businesses and media; Egin and Egin Irratia

Several private companies, professional projects, which were legal and dealt with commercial sectors related to Egin and Egin Irratia, were placed under administration due to their alleged links to what the investigation judge calls the “ETA-KAS organisation”.

On 25/05/98, the operation against what at the time was termed “the ETA financial network”, in other words, against businesses which, according to the Investigation Court, favoured or co-operated towards funding ETA. Garzón takes the alleged “integration” of these companies within ETA as a starting point to state that any member of the boards of these companies was committing a “crime of terrorism”.

On 15/07/98, agents of the Cuerpo Nacional de Policía carried out a final search of the premises of the daily newspaper Egin and of the radio station Egin Irratia, based on the thesis that both media were part of the financial network of ETA and were but a “tool” ETA used in order to carry out its activity. At the same time, Judge Garzón dictated the closure of the two media companies and the sealing of the publishing company, the offices and the print-works.

The 4th section of the Penal Court at the Audiencia Nacional –the body in charge of dealing with the appeals against Garzón’s decisions- passed a resolution on 11/01/99, acknowledging the inappropriateness of the cautionary measures taken against Egin. In addition, the 4th section issued an order on 04/07/01 stating that “mere membership of KAS or the administration board of ORAIN SA does not imply membership of an armed group. Specifically, it said that “there is no rational basis whatsoever for inferring a crime of membership of the terrorist organisation ETA from the fact that a person is a member of the administration board of the company ORAIN SA”

On 09/07/03, the defence demanded permission to re-open the closed premises, skating that five years had passed since the closure of the newspaper. The 3rd Section issued its decision on 13/07/03, whereby it “decreed the opening of the premises so as to allow the owners access”. However, it immediately added a series of measures which made use of the premises impossible and prevented the possibility of continuing the media project. All that was left was a ruined business enterprise and old and weathered premises, affected by the passage of time. Above all, it was clear that the main aim of the case was to remove a daily newspaper with an editorial line which was uncomfortable for those in power.

2. Case 18/98
Separate piece AEK

The investigation was incorporated into Case 18/98, and this part appears as a separate piece within the main piece of the Case. On 22/11/00 the judge issued a summons for nineteen members of AEK to appear in court for statements.

The summons established the charges of membership of an armed group and other economic crimes –including a debt with the social security of 1,300 million pesetas. Judge Garzón accused those responsible for AEK of “integration within ETA” because AEK and GALGARAKA S.L. “constitute entities integrated within ETA-KAS, in the so-called mass-front, […] as well as in the financial and economic front or network […] within the large-companies section”. He added that “through the principle of unfolding and double activism set by ETA-KAS, AEK and its instrumental company –Galgaraka S.L.- have been controlled by full-time members of KAS who were inserted in its ruling bodies, which are practically the same in both cases”. He also stated that AEK, which he places within the “plan for shared funding designed by ETA-KAS, has contributed to funding other structures in the organisation –ORAIN-Egin, Gadusmar, Jarrai...”

In his injunction of 24/12/01 he changed his mind and stated that the people charged in relation to AEK and GALGARAKA are not members of ETA, nor do they cooperate with this organisation; rather, the case is sent to the Bilbao Province Court, due to the alleged fraud against the Treasury – a charge which would later be dropped- and the Judicial Administration over the Basque language teaching organisation was lifted. The Court admitted the fact that there was no link whatsoever between AEK and ETA. Indeed, there were no rational elements to support these charges for over three years. Nevertheless, the Court pushed the charges in a malicious way, causing irreparable damage to AEK via the shadow of suspicion it cast.

3. Case 18/98
Separate piece Xaki

The proceedings against Xaki began with the arrest of Nekane Txapartegi and Mikel Egibar on 09/03/99. after a year-long investigation, the judge decided to include these proceedings within Case 18/98. during a second police operation, on 29/01/00, a number of arrest warrants were issued, as a result of a police report called “UCI report on the external relations of ETA-KAS and the rest of the BNLM and the European Association Xaki”. These proceedings were to remain secret from the time of the first arrests, 09/03/99, until 26/07/99. part of the first police operation in these proceedings involved a police raid on the offices of the political party Herri Batasuna in Donostia, on 01/03/99, following an order from Audiencia Nacional Central Investigation Court Nº3.

The main piece of evidence in these proceedings was the statement made by Mikel Egibar while under arrest, and later ratified by the detainee before the judge, while he was still not allowed to see his lawyer. Mikel Egibar made a complaint to the courts about the torture he was subjected to during his detention. Several of the people mentioned in his statement expressed their willingness to appear before the judge to give statements. At the time, the court stated it did not believe these statements to be necessary. Later, on 29/01/00, despite the fact that there was no new evidence against these people, the judge issued arrest warrants for eight Xaki members. Later on (07/08/00), CIC Nº5 indicted sixteen people and brought another nine into the proceedings for alleged membership of ETA.

On 08/02/01, the 4th Section of the Penal Court of the Audiencia Nacional made a decision in response to the appeals made by the defence. It rejected the charges against several of the people indicted by Central Investigation Court Nº5, which meant some of them were released from jail. The decision by the 4th Section showed up Baltasar Garzón’s thesis. It’s decision stated that “the clear fact, which this tribunal must admit, is that the aims of the European Association Xaki present no signs of being illegal, and it is an association that carries out its activity publicly and is legally constituted”. “Affording legal or medical assistance to deportees in other countries, carrying out actions to prevent extradition requests from being approved, criticising the Spanish legal system, promoting international recognition for the right to self-determination, or even publicising the so-called Democratic Alternative for the Basque Country inside or outside Spain, is behaviour which, in itself, lacks any criminal significance, whether these are done by an individual or by several people who have associated to such an end”.

The spokesman for the Spanish government of the time considered this decision by the 4th Section of the Penal Court of the Audiencia Nacional “especially serious”. The decision invalidated the indictment of the people charged by judge Garzón due to their involvement with Xaki. José María Aznar’s government publicly stated its “belief that Spanish society will find the decision made by the 4th Section very difficult to understand". The pressure being exerted by the government on the 4th Section began to be clearly perceivable.

4. Case 18/98.
Separate Piece Pepe Rei-Ardi Beltza

José Benigno Rey, Pepe Rei, was the former head of the investigation team at Egin daily newspaper and, after it was closed down, became the editor in chief of the Ardi Beltza (Black Sheep) magazine. As a consequence of the police UCI (Central Investigation Unit) report of 15/02/99, proceedings against this journalist were opened up, for an alleged crime of “co-operation with an armed group”, in the belief that his activities as the head of Ardi Beltza “are clearly in line with the kind of penal category the accused is being indicted with and far from any kind of activities linked to journalistic work”. The indictment order added that his activity “amounts to placing the means at his disposal –the Ardi Beltza magazine- at the service of the terrorist organisation ETA-KAS-Ekin or other groups under its discipline, in order to aid in the selection of targets”. According to the injunction, “adjudicating responsibilities or satanising is in line with the traditional strategy of ETA-KAS-Ekin, within which Pepe Rei’s activities fit in”.

Garzón added that the magazine “has no informative interest whatsoever, except for ETA or its groups” and highlighted the fact that this information work is the same as the work Rei carried out as the head of the Egin investigation team.

On 13/06/01, Pepe Rei was released, having spent five months in jail. Contradicting Garzón’s theses yet again, the 4th Section of the Audiencia Nacional accepted the appeals made by the journalist’s defence lawyers and, consequently, revoked the imprisonment order, convinced that there was no indication that Rei had committed any of the crimes he was accused of. The tribunal concluded that “we have found no incitation to commit crimes of terrorism” in the reports contained in Ardi Beltza. Furthermore, this Section of the Penal Court highlighted the fact that “adjudicating responsibilities is not a legal-penal category” and that “in itself, it is not relevant in terms of the penal law”. Again, this 4thSection of the Audiencia Nacional suffered an intense campaign by certain media and public powers due to its actions, discrediting several of Garzón’s decisions. This campaign achieved its aims: on 06/02/02, the magistrates of the 4th Section issued a decision, this time confirming Baltasar Garzón’s indictment order against Pepe Rei for “membership of an armed group and terrorist threats”. The Tribunal justified its change of opinion with alleged new evidence and accused the former director of Ardi Beltza of having published information about certain people in order to “stigmatise them and point them out as possible targets for the terrorist organisation”.

5.A. Case 18/98.
Separate Piece Ekin

On 12/09/00, twenty alleged members of Ekin were arrested and a number of homes and premises allegedly used by the said organisation were searched. Within the same raid and under the cover of the arrest warrants, premises and offices belonging to the political party Herri Batasuna in Donostia, Bilbo and Iruñea were also searched. The proceedings were added to the main Case 18/98 via a court resolution on 17/10/00.

In its response to the appeals by the defence, the 4th Section of the Audiencia Nacional contradicted the investigation judge again. in its decision of 04/04/01, this tribunal stated that “the accused are charged with having taken part in setting up Ekin, as a organisation subordinated to ETA […] in order to “co-direct”, on behalf of the terrorist organisation, the network of political and social organisations that make up the so-called BNLM and, according to the explanation given, such an activity can be considered criminal both if the creation of Ekin was decided by the terrorist organisation itself or if, once Ekin had been set up, it developed its activities in a way that is completely subordinated to the orders of the armed group. […] in both cases, relating to the existence of a relation of subordination between ETA and Ekin, upon which the remand in custody order is based, but the verification of which is essential for the said events to be relevant in penal law. This relationship can by no means be assumed and must be established in a precise and conclusive way”. The 4th Section, therefore, doubts the precision of the accusation.

This decision caused a virulent reaction in the media and by government officials. The government spokesman even said that “this decision goes against a substantial part of the mechanisms we have to combat terrorism with the law”. Judge Garzón himself accused the 4th Section of acting “in ignorance”.

On the same day as the 4th Section criticised Baltasar Garzón’s arguments with reference to the alleged link between ETA and Ekin, the judge banned Ekin, declaring it illegal and reiterating the arguments that the 4th Section had rejected; in other words, that ETA created Ekin, that Ekin succeeded KAS and fulfils the same functions, that it exercises control and leadership over the whole of the BNLM, that it carries out and controls Kale Borroka and that it controls ETA’s alleged civil disobedience campaign.

5B. Case 18/98.
Separate piece Ekin, referring to the Joxemi Zumalabe Foundation

On 04/10/00, an operation co-ordinated by Baltasar Garzón took place against the Joxemi Zumalabe Foundation, whereby its premises were searched as well as those of ABK, and nine people were arrested. The Minister of the Interior at the time, Jaime Mayor Oreja, stated that the arrests amounted to the “dismantlement of a part of ETA’s political network on the inside [of the Spanish state]” the aim of which was “civil disobedience and to overcome the constitutional framework”.

The arrest warrants issued by judge Garzón against these nine people were based on the publication of a document called “Piztu Project”, upon which the activity of the intervened organisations was based and which would allegedly show their link to the “ETA-KAS disobedience project”. With this reasoning, Garzón accused the detainees of being linked to the armed organisation and of promoting “the ETA-KAS disobedience project, with the declared aims of subverting the constitutional order and creating spaces for counter-power”. Upon hearing part of the content of Garzón’s orders and the media interpretations being made, Mikel Zuloaga, the true author of the Piztu document, appeared in public to categorically deny any links to ETA and to take responsibility for the content of the document, which was a proposal for debate and a proposal for peaceful civil disobedience

On 01/11/00, judge Baltasar Garzón issued an arrest warrant against Mikel Zuloaga, for him to be brought to make a statement at CIC Nº5 the following day. Zuloaga told how he was violently arrested and subjected to pressure during his time in police custody, which caused him to suffer a nervous breakdown and to hyperventilate. Following his statement at CIC Nº5, he was remanded in custody under the charge of “being a legal (unknown to the police) member of the political apparatus of ETA”.

At this point in time, there was a new element affecting the appeal made by the defence for the people arrested in relation to Ekin-Joxemi Zumalabe Foundation. The magistrates in the 4th Section had been removed from office –as will be explained later- and, on 03/12/02, the new 4th Section rejected this appeal and rectified the criteria used by the former 4th Section. All the people affected until then were kept inside the proceedings. The order declaring the activities of the Foundation illegal hinges not only on the fact that they were allegedly fostered by ETA or favour ETA’s activities –which would be a criterion of objective responsibility- but also the fact that the said civil disobedience seeks to overcome the legal framework. In other words, the various civil disobedience initiatives attempt, in practice, to overcome the Spanish legal framework, disobeying its rules –again, always in a peaceful way- and it is this, in itself, which is considered illegal, deserving penal punishment, but not only as an act which disobeys the law –which would bring on a minor punishment- but as a form of terrorist activity. We are evidently in the presence of a move to criminalise aims, not actions.

5.C Case 02/03
Iker Casanova

Iker Casanova was arrested on 13/09/02. He was placed under incommunicado detention, taken to Madrid, to the Spanish Policía Nacional quarters and delivered before the judge on Monday, 16/09/02. He had to make his statement to the judge whilst still incommunicado (therefore unable to be aided by his own lawyer). The imprisonment order refers to him as “the head of the financial-economic area of Ekin” and also accused him of “organising the protests and demonstrations on the occasion of the death of ETA members” as well as of “co-ordinating actions following the suspension of the activities of HB-EH-Batasuna” and insisting on describing him as a “dynamiser” for Ekin; all of which would amount to a “crime of membership of the terrorist organisation ETA-Ekin”.

On 03/10/02, Rubén Nieto, Paul Asensio and Javier Balantzategi were re-arrested, following an order from the 3rd Section of the Penal Court, based on a report by the UCI stating that these three people were carrying out work for the by then illegal Batasuna, specifically, taking part in the demonstration which, under the motto Gora Euskal Herria (Long Live the Basque Country) took place in Bilbao on 14/09/02. When they were delivered to the 3rd Section of the penal court, they were sent to jail, in other words, while up until then they had been under a provisional release order they went on to be provisionally imprisoned, as the Tribunal decided all three of them had re-offended. Nevertheless, the charges are absolutely irrelevant or absurd from the point of view of penal law: having managed the sale of premises belonging to Batasuna and acquiring other premises for the said political organisation –at the time when it was still a legal political party- having managed the payment –with money with accounted-for sources- of bail for one of the people accused within Case 18/98, organising demonstrations and protests against the ban on Batasuna –all of which were legal and did not bring about any legal actions whatsoever- organising publicity for the said demonstrations… However, we must insist upon the fact that the arrests can only be correctly understood within the context of the confrontation following the demonstration of 14/09/02, intended to cause dramatic effect and as part of an attempt by Garzón to take revenge and appear tough and forceful.

5.D. Other separate pieces

There are other separate pieces within Case 18/98 which, despite having not given rise to any arrests, are subject to ongoing proceedings and investigation. These are mostly open pieces referring to specific events.

Separate piece “J.L.M.” –JEAN LEON MAITIA-
These proceedings were opened on 01/10/98, with reference to the intervention against the publishing companies EUSKAL KULTURGINTZA S.A. –Zabaltzen– and ELKAR S.L. The proceedings were opened due to a suspicion that they were serving to fund ETA members in the French state. Later, a decision was published, acknowledging that ZABALTZEN S.A. has no penal responsibility in connection to ETA.

Separate piece “Ekin-ANTZA”
Opened on 29/08/98, on the basis of a document by the UCI, dated on the same day, dealing with the publishing of “Euskadi Informacion”. According to the police report, this newssheet is linked to ETA because “Euskadi Información”, ANTZA S.A.L. –a private company in the field of printing- and the organisation Ekin are allegedly interlinked.

Separate piece “Seguridad Social” (Social Security)
This piece continues to be under an order of confidentiality, therefore its content is unknown.

Separate piece on judicial administration
Via this proceeding, Baltasar Garzón concluded that there is “business continuity” between ORAIN S.A.-Egin and EHKE S.A.-GARA, as described above in the section dealing with the main piece Egin. Thus, the judge establishes an alleged link between them so that the charges against the former affect the latter.

Separate piece on banks
This piece continues to be under an order of confidentiality, therefore its content is unknown.

Piece 728
This piece continues to be under an order of confidentiality, therefore its content is unknown.

6.- Case 18/01
Haika-Jarrai

Case 15/01
Segi

Case 18/01, which in strictly formal terms is unconnected to Case 18/98, began as a separate piece –called “piece A.A”- within the mother case 18/98. However, this “piece A.A” was separated from Case 18/98 by Baltasar Garzón and ended up being a case unto itself: Case 18/01.

On 06/03/01, Judge Baltasar Garzón issued arrest warrants against fifteen young Basques, alleged members of HAIKA , stating that they were “incorporated” within the armed organisation ETA through their membership of HAIKA. In his conclusions, Garzón inferred that both youth organisations are “but an appendix, integrated within the ETA terrorist structure” and the states that “they complement its activity and serve as a recruitment pool” adding that “the link between Jarrai-Haika and Kale Borroka (Urban Struggle) is beyond doubt according to the documents we have studied. It is the ideal structure for this form of complementary armed struggle, which is necessarily a form of terrorist activity, whether it is carried out in support of ETA or in communion with ETA”.

On 05/02/02 Preliminary Inquiry 172/01 was opened –later to become Case 15/02- against people accused of belonging to SEGI, which was considered to be the successor organisation to JARRAI-HAIKA. Based on this decision, Garzón ordered another police operation on 08/03/02 against twelve young Basques. He used the same thesis for the outlawing of SEGI as the reasoning to support the entry, search and arrest warrants. He considered SEGI to be an organisation within “the ETA-Ekin network”; stating that it “is continuity for the outlawed JARRAI-HAIKA” because its aims “independence and socialism”, its self-definition “a revolutionary organisation struggling for an independent and socialist Basque Country and opposed to the youth-exploiting capitalist system” and its structure “are identical”. He admitted that in his investigation, those who “appear as leaders of Segi have been identified due to their appearing in public” and “monitored telephone conversations whereby it is clear that they are the ones making decisions, organising activities and ordering others to do various jobs”, as well as because of their “attendance at organisational meetings”. He affirms that the detainees are “the highest leaders” of Segi and direct “its activities, which refer to Kale Borroka, threats and coercion against people linked to the Administration of Justice, the Police, the Guardia Civil, businesses and other people opposed to ETA-Ekin postulates”. None of these generic charges was distributed individually.

After taking their statements, on 11/03/02, Garzón accused them all of “a possible crime of being integrated within the organisation ETA-Ekin-Segi” as well as 46 crimes of “inducing to terrorism”. The Court insisted in not limiting responsibility for taking part in the alleged crimes to specific individuals and made the whole organisation responsible for the alleged crimes.

Meanwhile, this case has been plagued with a completely unacceptable level of inactivity during four years. The trial has begun precisely two months before the date when several of the accused will have spent four years in jail (6 March), the maximum legal period for a person to be in jail awaiting trial. If this limit were to be exceeded, the accused would have to be released. It would have been difficult to explain this inefficiency of the Spanish legal system, but it seems even more difficult to attempt to carry out such a complicated trial in such a short period of time and abide by all the legal guarantees.

1.In 1999, following a long process of debate and discussion, Jarrai and Gazteriak (a youth organisation from the part of the Basque Country under French administration) merged to create a new organisation for Basque young people on both sides of the border, called HAIKA. This new organisation began work in various fields, from the defence of the collective rights of the Basque Country to specific campaigns on the difficult social and economic situations the Basque youth faces.

7.A.- Case 33/01
Gestoras Pro Amnistía

On 31/10/01, Baltasar Garzón began the operation against the Gestoras Pro Amnistía, arresting 13 people, spokespersons and people known to be co-ordinators for the association. The judge believed it to be proven that “all of them develop work related to their membership of Gestoras with knowledge and being conscious of the integration of the said organisation within ETA-KAS-Ekin, and each and every one of them acting at the service of the terrorist organisation”. He also argued that ETA is a “group of structures which afford cohesion, meaning and aims to its broad, integrated and many-shaped criminal activity”, with the objective of “subverting the Constitutional order and seeking dismemberment or “self-determination” of a part of the Spanish territory and serious alteration of the public peace”. In order to justify this reasoning, there is a summary of activities such as “exercising control over the ETA prisoners’ collective, linking and communicating the leaders through some of the lawyers on its payroll; guaranteeing internal cohesion and submission to the discipline of the organisation; cooperating and funding maintenance costs for the prisoners and ETA members on the run in other countries; coordinating and promoting forms of struggle which complement ETA’s at the demonstration in support of the prisoners’ collective; taking advantage of the solidarity towards ETA prisoners who allegedly have their rights violated in order to carry out recruitment to regenerate its structure” The truth is that among the activities Central Investigation Court Nº5 charged Gestoras with there are some which are true, whilst other times –in the case of the activities which are clearly criminal- the charges are simply untrue.

Continuing with his line of argument, judge Garzón issued an injunction on 15/11/01, charging a further fifteen people in this case. On 03/12/01 the national coordinator of Gestoras Pro Amnistia, Juan María Olano, was arrested in Baiona. He was later extradited to the Spanish state.

On 19/12/01 Baltasar Garzón issued an order, restating his arguments from the previous operation and outlawing the whole of Gestoras Pro Amnistia, considering their activities forbidden by criminal law. He issued a further injunction on 05/02/02 whereby the activities of the more recent Askatasuna association were also banned, as it had continued Gestoras Pro Amnistia’s work and because the similarities between them amounted to a “succession of organisations”. On 05/02/03 yet another police operation took place against five people linked to this organisation. Their homes were searched, as were the offices of the Prisoners’ Relatives’ Association, Etxerat, in Bilbo, Hernani and Gasteiz. On 06/02/03 Central Investigation Court Nº5 issued a decision grouping all the preliminary investigations for this case under the heading of Case 33/01.

7.B.- Case 33/01
Attack on Basque Lawyers

Case 33/01 –Gestoras Pro Amnistia- opened up a campaign by media and political figures against the activity of the lawyers working on cases which can be termed political. The main thrust of this campaign was to say that those lawyers were part of the “macos” –jails- front of the armed organisation ETA.

In the early hours of the 31st December, as pat of the operation against Gestoras Pro Amnistía, a number of offices and other premises which Judge Garzón supposed were used by Gestoras were searched. In fact, two of the offices searched were actually lawyers’ offices, which were inscribed as such at the corresponding law societies in Gipuzkoa and Navarre.

It is important to highlight the fact that Judge Baltasar Garzón, who led the operation in person, from Bilbo, was warned of this circumstance – the fact that the police were carrying out searches at lawyers’ professional offices- by lawyer Arantza Zulueta. Therefore, he was conscious of the fact from the early hours of the morning. In the case of the search in Hernani, the judge considered he was searching the offices of Gestoras Pro Amnistía, although it is actually two floors up from the lawyers’ offices he was illegally searching. Nevertheless, judge Garzón ignores lawyer Zulueta’s warnings and the operation went ahead. Both the offices were sealed off and the computers and documents in the offices were seized.

The judge went on to order the offices to be opened and the seized material to be returned, after he had all the documents and contents of the computers copied. This is a flagrant violation of the right of lawyers to professional confidentiality. Several lawyers were also indicted within these proceedings, under various cases and pieces.

8.A.- Case 35/02
Batasuna

On 29/04/02, agents of the Cuerpo Nacional de Policía arrested eleven people in the street, in broad daylight. These people were allegedly linked to the management of associations and private clubs for cultural, social and gastronomic activities, known as Herriko Tabernas and linked to the political party Batasuna. Actions against this party were channelled through a separate set of proceedings, called Preliminary Proceedings153/2000, which is now Case 35/02. in addition, the legal consultancy Etxepare, in Mungia, a consultancy called Aisa, in Tolosa, the agencies Hator, in Tolosa, and Ducal, in Bilbo and the catering companies Erosgune S.L. and Eneko S.L. were all searched, as well as all the detainees’ homes.

The accusation levelled by Garzón against these people, made public by the Spanish Ministry of the Interior, is that they were “part of ETA’s financial network” in line with the investigations in Case 18/98. According to these government sources, the arrests were a result of investigations going back three years, and placed these alleged financing systems within what Garzón calls “the ETA-KAS-Ekin terrorist complex”. The police accused the detainees of having set up a financing plan designed by the ETA leadership in 1992, which would involve creating companies with a legal activity and through which, according to the Police, ETA would obtain economic resources to “maintain the members of the terrorist organisation and of the so-called “Basque left-wing”.

Later on, the judge considered the configuration and functions of the herriko tabernas as “a global struggle instrument at the service of the structures which are part of the so-called Basque National Liberation Movement, which makes them a first-class propaganda, logistical and financial tool”. Judge Garzón has also issued instructions –the full amount is still unknown- to freeze the bank accounts of the said herriko tabernas. On 11/11/02, several representatives of the herriko tabernas appeared before the judge at Central Investigation Court Nº5 to state their case in view of the accusations from the court. Finally, on 09/05/03, Garzón issued an order on the future of these premises, ordering judicial administration for 75 of them.

On 26/08/02 a new order was issued by CIC Nº5, adopting the most drastic and radical measures yet, within this set of proceedings. These included the following:

- Declaring Batasuna´s activities illegal, for a period of three years, which may be extended for a further two. All its activities, whether public or private, organisational or institutional are banned.
- All the premises used by the party are closed for the same period, beginning with its main offices and including the private clubs known as herriko tabernas.
- All institutions and bodies concerned were urged to regulate the rights of the public offices held by people representing Batasuna, understanding that these elected posts shall be held “within the strict limits of institutional activity”. This, in practice, may mean that elected members of the institutions could be banned from any activity outside the institution, such as press conferences…
- Suspension of the right to call demonstrations…
- Suspension of the right to carry out publicity activities.
- Suspension of the web page
- Notification to the media of all the above so that they shall not allow Batasuna to use advertising space.
- Finally, the police was requested to compile a list of people linked to Batasuna from the time it was founded to the present day. There is no specification of what kind of action may be taken on this list –whether the people on it will be summoned, or if so, whether they will be summoned as witnesses or accused, whether they will be arrested…

Finally, it should not be forgotten that on the day Batasuna’s offices were closed and sealed, the Basque regional police also sealed off the offices of two prestigious organisations in the field of human rights: Etxerat- the association of Basque political prisoners’ relatives- and TAT –Group Against Torture. On 02/10/02 Garzón ordered the offices to be re-opened, with no mention of the reasons why he ordered their closure or this reversal of his previous orders.

Garzón issued instructions, on 16/10/02, to the various security forces and a number of other state bodies, requiring them to carry out numerous proceedings in order to attempt to find information which Hill support the thesis held by the CIC Nº5 judge, in other words, that Batasuna was carrying out ethnic cleansing in the Basque Country.

CIC Nº5 informed the State Prosecution about the obstacles it was finding upon trying to get the Parliament of the Basque Autonomous Community to follow the criteria set by the said Court on the ban of the Sozialista Abertzaleak parliamentary group, which the court believes to be a substitute of the former Batasuna parliamentary group. Specifically, the Court believes the behaviour of the Parliament Board (akin to the speakers of the parliament) to be illegal and therefore, requested the State Prosecution to adopt any necessary measures. As a result, legal action was carried out against the members of the Board: Juan María Atutxa, Gorka Knörr and Kontxi Bilbao.

The consequences are that CIC Nº5 seized and blocked all Batasuna’s assets, rendering it practically unworkable. This line of argument was extended, via the order issued on 07/05/03, to Case 18/01, dealing with the organisation Haika, in such a way to make Batasuna bear civil responsibility for the events included in the latter set of proceedings.

8.B.- Case 35/02
The right of assembly and demonstration

The aim of this section is to briefly analyse a specific aspect of Baltasar Garzón´s actions within Case 35/02, which affects the right of assembly and demonstration.

We believe the judge has issued instructions and orders which are not within his jurisdiction, granting himself prerogatives he does not have, such as jurisdiction to authorise or ban demonstrations or public meetings in the Basque Country. We also believe that his resolutions, within Case 35/02 against Batasuna affect the right to demonstrate of third parties that are not involved or linked to the criminal proceedings.

The judge’s intentions upon suspending Batasuna are clear: “suspension of the ability to call demonstrations, pickets, caravans, or any other public event and of the possibility of attending the like” and also preventing the possibility that Batasuna may use other “ghost” or “screen” organisations in order to try to carry out the activities it can no longer call in its own name. However, a serious problem immediately arises: any call to demonstrate, issued by another organisation or by private individuals will be analysed and interpreted so as to find out whether it is a protest organised by Batasuna but masked under another organisation. From that moment, the police authorities and CIC Nº5 itself began to determine, over and above the wills of those calling the demonstrations, whether the said demonstration was or was not a Batasuna demonstration.

The problems we are pointing out are not mere theory. The authorities in charge of applying the judge’s instructions found problems upon attempting to interpret them, so that CIC Nº5 had to issue a new injunction, on 02/09/02, requesting the Central Investigation Unit of the Police to determine whether there were “ calls for demonstrations issued by Batasuna, directly or indirectly”. Therefore, a restrictive and undefined criterion was introduced, as there was a ban on protests called by Batasuna “directly or indirectly”. This means that it will be the Police who must determine whether there is any “indirect” link. Thus, it can be seen how the ban becomes extensive. Demonstrations called to denounce or protest against the suspension of Batasuna were banned. In addition, there was a reinforcement of the tendency to ban both the demonstrations called by Batasuna and those inspired by Batasuna, indirectly organised by this party… The criterion is, again, extensive. The doors were opened up for bans on any demonstration or protest called by people whom the police suspect may have any link or be ideologically close to Batasuna. The application of these instructions generated different interpretations by different administrative and judiciary bodies, with contradicting consequences.

9.- Case 44/04
Egunkaria

The daily newspaper Euskaldunon Egunkaria was closed down on the night of 20/02/03 and 10 people, who held or had held various posts within the management board, were arrested under the generic accusation of “membership of or cooperation with an armed group”. This case was conducted by Judge Juan del Olmo, from Audiencia Nacional Central Investigation Court Nº6, and the newspaper’s offices in Andoain, Iruñea, Gasteiz and Bilbo were searched, closed and sealed.

Following the arrests, the Guardia Civil searched the detainees’ homes and various premises property of Euskaldunon Egunkaria and the Federation of Ikastolas –Basque language schools. Meanwhile, members of the said Spanish military corps also searched the offices of Jakin magazine in Donostia. The premises of Argia magazine, in Lasarte, Diana Tecnologia S.L., in Oiartzun, and Zine Zero S.L., in Lezo, were also searched.

According to government sources, “this large operation culminated the investigation carried out by the Guardia Civil Information Service of the use by the terrorist group ETA of the daily Euskaldunon Egunkaria through the company Egunkaria S.A. The judge ordered, provisionally and with no prior notification to the parties involved, the closure and termination of activities of the newspaper’s publishing company and its web page.

An official joint press statement by the Ministry of the Interior and Investigation Court Nº6 gave the reasons for closing the newspaper down. This caused a great stir because, if it were confirmed that it was indeed a joint statement, it would mean the judicial and the executive powers were working jointly.

The detainees spent the legal maximum period for incommunicado detention –five days- and appeared before the judge with court-appointed lawyers. Several of the detainees, Martxelo Otamendi, Txema Auzmendi, Joan Mari Torrealdai, Xabier Alegria, Iñaki Uria and Xabier Oleaga told how they were brutally tortured by the Guardia Civil during those five days. Pello Zubiria also had to be admitted to hospital due to health problems. News of how he had tried to commit suicide while in hospital came out. The Minister of the Interior at the time, Angel Acebes, publicly stated, on 26/02/03, that the detainees were correctly treated at all times, that the torture and ill treatment complaints were lies and that he had instructed the legal services in his Ministry to take legal action against those who make torture complaints.

The imprisonment order, 12 pages long, is vague and there are no specific charges made against concrete individuals; nor is there any mention to events or actions whereby the charges are made. The injunction charged nine detainees with “a crime of membership or cooperation with a terrorist organisation”.

On 10/03/03, Central investigation Court Nº6 issued two lengthy injunctions (41 and 45 pages long) whereby it resolved the matter of the preventive closure of the companies related to the newspaper. The injunction informed of the preventive closure and suspension of activities of Egunkaria Sortzen S.L. and Egunkaria S.A. and a number of other measures as a consequence of the latter: seizure of the assets of the said companies, freezing of the accounts… The logic behind these injunctions was well known by then: ETA has many legal organisations and tools which it uses to achieve its aims; this newspaper would allegedly be among these tools. The closure was initially to last six months, after which it was to be reviewed. On 15/07/03, Central Court Nº1 issued an order, sequestrating the assets of Egunkaria Sortzen S.L. and Egunkaria S.A. This measure would serve as a reason to order administration by the court of the said assets later on.

On 16/10/03, a new set of arrests linked to this case took place: Juan del Olmo ordered the Guardia Civil to arrest eight people who were well known within the field of Basque culture. They were held incommunicado for longer than the legal limit and then taken before the judge. At that point, Juan del Olmo, in an unprecedented decision, decided to arrest lawyer Enekoitz Etxebarria inside the Audiencia Nacional itself, while he was assisting the detainees. After giving their statements, all nine people were released under a variety of precautionary measures.

10.- Case 6/03.
Udalbiltza

On 29/04/03 the Policía Nacional, following orders from Central investigation Court Nº 5, arrested eight members of the Basque Institution Udalbiltza and closed down their offices in the Gasteiz and Bizkaia as well as the head office in Astigarraga (Gipuzkoa).

On 30/04/03 the detainees appeared before Judge Baltasar Garzón to make their statements and they were all jailed, charged with being members of ETA.

In their statements, all the detainees denied having any involvement with ETA. Following their appearance, during which they were allowed legal counsel of their choice, Garzón issued a 62 page-long injunction whereby, as well as ordering their imprisonment pending trial, he declared “Udalbiltza-Kursaal illegal as part of the terrorist organisation ETA-Ekin”.

He also accused the detainees and Udalbiltza itself of “creating a structure to allow the terrorist group to stand for election” in the election of May 25 “substituting the banned party Batasuna”. In his injunction, the judge stated that “it is precisely the danger of losing control of several town halls” in Araba, Bizkaia, Gipuzkoa and Nafarroa “what has brought about the creation of a project designed to neutralise that objective risk for the upcoming election, by the whole terrorist network led by ETA-Ekin”. The resolution announced a “more comprehensive” future investigation of “a crime of misappropriation of funds” which would have taken place “in the budgets of certain town halls in the Basque Country and Navarre controlled by HB-EH-Batasuna and Sozialista Abertzaleak”. The judge added that “this misappropriation of funds is also a crime of cooperation with an armed group”.

On 08/05/03 Baltasar Garzón decided to include the president of Udalbiltza and mayor of Ondarroa, Loren Arkotxa, and the mayor of Oiartzun, Xabier Iragorri, in the case against Udalbiltza. Garzón believes that both Arkotxa, as the highest representative of Udalbiltza, and Iragorri, as the president of Udalbiltza Kontsortzioa and representative for the Development and Cohesion Fund –“considered to be the legal front through which the assembly of elected local representatives manages its funding”- are “responsible for the activities of these bodies within the framework of ETA activity”.

Judge Baltasar Garzón believes that this institution is part of ETA’s strategy, that it amounts to the embryo of an institutional network which will be fully developed through a political-military strategy, and that some of its activities are simply criminal. For instance, one of the initiatives set up by this institution is the creation of a Basque national identity card, so that any citizens who may wish to can use it instead of having to use a Spanish or French ID document. The judge deems the existence of this identity card illegal, because, in the end -he says- what is being done is to create a new register where only Basques with nationalist beliefs can be included and which, finally, would become on of the bases of the “low-intensity ethnic-cleansing strategy” which he attributes to the Basque pro-independence movement.