----::::euskalherriawatch::::----

The reading of documentary evidence, consisting of documents seized in the police searches of Gestoras, Askatasuna and even the offices of the lawyers or reviews from newspapers proposed by the accusation, had not been completed in previous sessions due to their presentation in the Basque language, thus requiring translation. Other documents had been presented in their original language (Basque) and translated (presumably by the police), after which the translators that participated in the trial corroborated that the translations given corresponded to the originals.

The reading of these documents had been postponed, a procedurally unheard-of practice, while the next procedural phase of listening to wiretappings took place. Once the texts were translated by the tribunal translators, they began reading them again, but then another unprecedented event occurred: the prosecutor, is engrossed in his work with his laptop preparing the report with his conclusions, unaware of the reading of the documents he himself had provided...and that are repeated!! The tribunal hardly notices this fact, which shows their own lack of interest or that their content is incomprehensible – as they don’t understand this social movement activity and the associative reality in the Basque Country. The defense lawyers and the prosecuted are the ones recognizing the documents, newly translated but formerly read. The prosecutor justifies himself: Since they were in Euskara (Basque) he could not know the content of said documents. Then, an obvious question arises: Why does the prosecutor bring incriminating evidence in documents whose content is unknown to him? Has someone instructed him to do so and he is just blindly following orders? Could it be because it was actually the police who supplied all the incriminating material and are the ones who actually are driving the process, as they are the ones who know the documents and know how to interpret them, while he is unaware of it all? The negligence of the prosecutor evidently drives us to this conclusion.

It was obvious during the declaration of the police expert that he was the one in charge and who was actually directing the accusation. The prosecutor’s line of questioning made the expert’s testimony difficult to understand, complicating it to the point that it was incomprehensible. This makes this hypothesis more plausible.

03/06/08
Sessions 24& 25
The listening to the wiretapped conversations continues

Distribution of posters, distribution of raffles and drawings, fund-raisers, assembly and disassembly of stages for benefit concerts, calling the telephone company to install new phone lines, phone calls in which demonstrations, protest acts, public initiatives are commented upon…activities that appear in the phone calls and that would demonstrate once more the public activity of the Pro-Amnesty Movement.

The organization of memorial events for the death in Alicante of Olaia Castresana, after a bomb that she was carrying exploded and her family’s accompaniment of her body back to the Basque Country were also conversations that were subject to wiretapping.

02/06/08
Sessions 22 & 23
The listening of wiretappings confirms the declared activity of the MPA (Pro-Amnesty Movement)

The first day of the public hearing, the defendants admitted to being members of the Pro-Amnesty Movement and testified on what their activity consisted of, namely in the anti-repressive field and in solidarity with people who suffer retaliation. The wiretapping of defendants’ mobile phones and landlines for Gestoras Pro-Amnesty and Askatasuna reveal their activities in several campaigns of solidarity, distribution of posters, contrasting press releases, preparing press conferences.

The listening that could be considered more worrisome, from the point of view of the prosecution, were the ones referring to the organization of tributes made to ETA members killed by Spanish Police Forces or as the explosives they were handling went off. At the time these acts occurred these facts were not attributed with any legal action against these persons. That is why now, presenting these facts to criminalize the whole activity of this movement as well as their spokespersons and activists in a general nebulosity of delinquency does not seem appropriate.

28/05/08
Session 21
The documentary evidence phase is postponed and the telephone tape recordings begin

The reading of documentary evidence could not be finished, as a very large number of said documents belonging to the Pro-Amnesty Movement and writings from newspapers were in the Basque language. This led the president of the tribunal to start –in a less than orthodox decision, legally speaking— with the next phase, namely the telephone tape recordings, as they waited for the aforementioned documents to be translated.

It is worth noting the prosecutor’s attitude toward the documents he himself had proposed, paying no attention whatsoever while they were being read, especially considering, as the defense noted, that several of them appeared repeatedly. The prosecutor attempted to justify this by stating “It is because these documents mention more than one person,” without bothering to specify which ones and forcing the secretary and the tribunal to identify which ones to avoid the tediousness produced by their repeated reading as he continued working on his laptop computer.

The listening to the telephone tape recordings began with recordings of Iñaki Reta, in which he talked with other colleagues about the organization of a press conference, the organization of the political act of “Askatasunaren Taupadak” or the receiving the body of the dead ETA militant Ekain Ruiz.

27/05/08
Sessions 19 and 20
Incomprehensible documentary evidence

The continuation of the prosecutor’s presentation of documentary evidence, which supposedly would be used to support the charges brought, is proving the public and well-known service provided by the Pro-Amnesty Movement. Thus, the provided documents are articles published by the newspaper Gara that refer to situations of human rights violations as the practice of the dirty war continues, of the application of torture or penitentiary politics. The newspaper reviews included public declarations from responsible members of this collective — Julen Zelarain, Maite Díaz de Heredia, Josu Beaumont, Iker Zubia, Julen Larrinaga, Jagoba Terrones, Txema Olabarrieta, etc. — in which they denounce deeds or their political responsible agents, showing solidarity with the victims or made proposals or organized social activities so that these human rights violations would not occur again.

It is worth mentioning how members of the tribunal experienced difficulty in understanding the said articles, evident by the embarrassment in which the secretary finds himself trying without success to make a coherent reading of them, as he refers to political terms, debate processes, Basque slogans, campaigns —Alde Hemendik, Txapela metalika, Elkarrekin Eraiki, etc.— easily recognized in the Basque political panorama but nevertheless unknown in other territories and in particular by the tribunal who pretend to judge what they can hardly understand.

26/05/08
Sessions 17 & 18
The reading of documents continues

The documentary evidence has continued with the reading by the secretary with innumerable errors of interpretation and difficulties of translation of various documents taken from the searches of the headquarters of Gestoras and Askatasuna. In said documents there are campaigns referring to the petition of repatriation of Basque prisoners and putting and end to the policies of having them sent away as far as possible from their country, as well as documents about the creation of the project internally named “Txapela metalika”, which consisted in the creation of a platform of eminent members of society who would appeal for a basic democratic platform. This project was scuttled with the operation carried out against Askatasuna in October 2001.

At the same time, several news articles were read in which Juan Mari Olano, national Coordinator of Gestoras Pro Amnistia, made public comments about questions related with the situation of the prisoners or for example, he made a reference to the deaths of four ETA militants in the Bilbao neighborhood of Bolueta.

21/05/08
Session 16
The practice of documentary evidence begins

At this point in the proceedings, the documents that provide the prosecutor with the basis of his charges were read; among these papers were things as diverse as appointment books with meeting notes, demonstrations, press conferences, or documents concerning assessments of activities and campaigns of Gestoras, like “the Christmas solidarity plan” that was specifically mentioned. Public letters to responsible political persons and institutions were also read. In such letters they were asked to reconsider and take action on different problems such as the rights of Basque political prisoners placed in far away prisons, the situation of the prisoners who have already served ¾ of their sentence or the situation of the ones who suffer incurable illnesses and should by law be granted freedom.

Accounting documents were shown on a screen in which without any explanation of what was being shown, was given complete incomprehensible information. They were actually detailing revenues from the placement of txoznas –stands set up at fairs where drinks and memorabilia are sold- , for “solidarity lotteries” or for the distribution of raffle tickets in different villages and neighborhoods.

20/05/08
Sessions 14 & 15
Askatasuna foundation

The last part of the National Police expert testimony dealt with the process known as “Elkarrekin eraikiz”, translated as “building together”, which led to the unification of the organism of Gestoras Pro-Amnesty, which works in the southern Basque Country with its northern counterpart, Koordinaketa. Said fusion process culminated in December 2001, some time after the operation in October in which 14 members of Gestoras were detained, with the public presentation of Askatasuna in the Kursaal Palace in Donostia. The organizations of families of Basque political prisoners of each side of the Pyrenees, Senideak and Gureak, carried out a similar process, giving shape to the current organization which unites family members in Etxerat! From the expert point of view, these processes in which “national” organisms are being created are not spontaneous processes but follow “ETA’s guideline that demands that it is necessary to operate on a national level as if the French-Spanish frontier did not exist”. Thus, the goal of the fusion process was not to "get around the prohibition of Gestoras activities" as the prosecutor stated, as the process had begun some time before the police intervention, "following ETA instruction published in the Zutabe bulletin in 1995."

The session ended with the intervention of two members of the Intelligence Service from the head office of the Guardia Civil, who read press extracts with declarations by Juan Mari Olano in which they asserted that he “threatened political parties, state senior officials and other public institutions”. The judge asked them to merely state the facts and leave the judicial interpretation to her.

19/05/08
Sessions 12 & 13
The UCI expert mixes responsibilities

Expert number 19,242 mentioned Gestoras’ responsibility for organizing acts of receiving the bodies of dead ETA members, as in the case of Olaia Kastresana. In the reading script of the speech, taken from one of Gestoras headquarters searched it said “We speak in defense of a political resolution; we speak in defense of peace.”

In another document there were mentions of different areas of Gestoras, establishing a national committee, prisoners’ committee, refugees’ committee, solidarity committee, democratic-freedoms committee, international committee, press committee…as well as the committees corresponding to the different provincial or local territories. A mention that in Bizkaia there were only 587 members of the anti-repression organization made the prosecutor doubt of the character of the movement as he asked the expert: “And that is a mass organization?” The expert stated that it is an organization of organizations, which are unfolded in others such as Ekin. The expert answered: “For a population like the Basque and considering we are referring to only one province, it is a respectable number.”

In relation to their responsibilities he maintained that these can only exist “in the complete trust of other related organizations”, connecting some of the accused to militancy in other organizations that they would have developed in the past like Jarrai, Kas or Ekin, without this always being grounded in reality.

14/05/08
Session 11
The prosecution expert’s testimony continues

As in previous sessions, officer number 19,242 of the National Police’s Central Intelligence Unit tried to explain the control role of KAS and subsequently Ekin over “the whole Basque National Liberation Movement”. Under this organigram, “members of Ekin controlled Gestoras activities” such as the Alde Hemendik – Go home!! campaign by which the state law enforcement agencies are asked to leave.

Furthermore, interpreting documents confiscated from ETA member Dorronsoro Malaxetxebarria in an operation in Paris in 1993, the expert concluded that “the lawyers would have served as mail-couriers between ETA and the Basque political prisoners.” It is worth mentioning that the lawyers’ activity is not under trial, even though the amount of time dedicated to this issue has been considerable, with no sign of the judge redirecting the testimony, like she had done on prior occasions to other witnesses.

13/05/08
Sessions 9 & 10
Police experts’ reports

Officer number 19,242, member of the UCI, leads the experts report presented by the Ministry’s public prosecutor. After confessing openly that the knowledge which makes him an expert - and consequently a scientific and impartial expert – is reduced to “his participation over 25 years in the anti-terrorist squad” and having been active in the investigation of this indictment as well as in trial number 18/98, he then started his narrative. In it, lead by the questions of the public prosecutor, he admitted that during the judicial investigation against the Pro-Amnesty Movement, the Hernani lawyers’ headquarters were searched and the police seized documents from their clients which were then “cloned” in their computers and subsequently used in the trial.

Referring to the origins of Gestoras he went back to the decade of the 70s, pointing out that in these last years of Franco’s dictatorial regime “there were many illegal social and political organizations and the number of imprisoned civilians for crimes of conscience or for politically-motivated violent crimes committed was very high.”

He pointed out that in the Basque Country a broad social movement emerged through committees that worked for amnesty and the release of political prisoners. After the Amnesty of 1977 “ETA-militar understood that it was a ‘false’ amnesty since the new judicial system suffered from a lack of democratic standards as it did not recognize the rights to territoriality and self-determination” and that is why ETA continued with its violent tactics in order to get its demands from the Spanish State. In this context, the expert said that “the prisons were full again in no time” and that is why the pro-amnesty movement was newly recovered, although he maintained that from then on it was only made up of people of Basque leftist ideology who demanded amnesty for ETA prisoners.
Faced with this interest from ETA’s part in the activity of this movement, the expert in his next explanations tried to give a convincing report of how by the mediation of KAS and then Ekin and Gestoras Pro-Amnistía were controlled by ETA.

12/05/08
Session 8
The 13 witnesses brought by the Gestoras-Askatasuna defendants finish their testimony

In this session six new witnesses participated in transmitting their testimony of state violence before the tribunal presided by Teresa Palacios. The first one of them, Carmen Mañas, recounted her sons’ detention and the situation of “helplessness” in which her family was immersed at that time, for which she then contacted Gestoras Pro-Amnesty “to find out what to do and how to address the situation”. Due to the repressive system against the youth and in order to denounce the deceit used by the police against them, the parents organized within the Gurasoak association. Carmen Mañas declared that on March 13th 2004 a Spanish Policeman killed her husband Angel Berrueta as the latter was identified with this association, a fact that she considers a “political crime” and “state terrorism.”

Andoni Txasco recounted the historical facts of March 3rd 1976 when the National Armed Police killed 5 workers that were having a meeting in a church in Gazteiz, being himself injured as the result of said attack. He said he knows Gestoras because Gestoras is part of a wide platform that is still asking today acknowledgement and reparation for the victims of these acts and their families.

Kontxi Luna, partner of Jose Mari Sagardui “Gatza”, who will soon have served 28 years in prison, considered that this policy of open-ended imprisonment against her husband and the families of political prisoners is “vengeance.” She posed the question that if the pro-amnesty movement disappears, who would assist them in putting a voice to the violation of rights suffered by the political prisoners. She felt “scared” of such a scenario. This situation of vulnerability in prison was corroborated by Itsaso Idoiaga, a doctor who works assisting sick prisoners.

In similar terms Mattin Trotiño expressed himself, as son and brother of political prisoners. The president of the tribunal cut his testimony short, rudely telling him “not to invent stories.”

07/05/08
Session nº7
Declaration of the witnesses presented by the defendants

The prosecuted, who had renounced their legal defense, and with that to the majority of their witnesses, did ask their lawyers to request the declaration of 14 witnesses who could demonstrate before the tribunal the dimension of the state repression and the functions in relation to these cases that these organisms in trial provided. The first seven proposed witnesses recounted their experiences in cases of torture, inhumane penitentiary conditions, or murders conducted by the state terrorism or by police and security state forces.

Thus, the director of the newspaper “Euskaldunon Egunkaria”, Martxelo Otamendi, denounced that he had suffered torture in the hands of the Guardia Civil, as Unai Romano, Edurne Brouard and Arantza Lasa recounted the murders of their family members in the hands of the Guardia Civil. Goreti Ormazabal, Juan Mari Ormazabal’s sister, whose death came after being shot by the Ertzaintza (Basque police force) in Bilbo; María José Campos recounted the living conditions of her husband, terminally ill and imprisoned to this day as well as Usoa Esteban Nieto recounted her brother Esteban Esteban Nieto’s illness contracted during his time in prison which caused his early death.

The magistrate Teresa Palacios tried to avoid these testimonies, interrupting the witnesses and asking them to limit their explanations to their relation to the Pro-amnesty movement. In that regard the witnesses recounted that this movement offered them “support and solidarity in moments of despair, confusion, and impotence” quoting Goreti Ormazabal. The daughter of Santi Brouard, a Batasuna leader assassinated by GAL, emphasized that “exists a wide solidarity movement which supports people who have suffered violence up close”.

06/05/08
Session nº6
The Ertzaintza (Basque police force) demonstrates sabotages against the judicial power

Basque autonomous police agents continued presenting in video-conference their official reports concerning different sabotages against different courts and tribunals in their area of dominium, the Basque Autonomous Community.

With their statements the prosecutor pretends to extend the moral responsibility of said sabotages to the prosecuted at large, who have publicly denounced the Spanish judicial actions in reference to the Basque conflict. During this period, there was only once an individual mention to the prosecuted Aratz Estonba, mentioning that he was detained after a demonstration in solidarity with the political prisoners. He was accused of an assault offence. Estonba was subsequently taken to court and was acquitted for it.

30/04/08
Session nº5
Ertzantza (Basque Autonomous Police) members appear before the judge

After the Guardia Civil turn, the Basque Autonomous Police agents gave evidence through a video-conferencing system. In this way, 13 agents limited themselves to making public the statements given after the attacks with home-made explosive devices on Magistrates’ Courts in communities like Ordizia, Oiartzun, Eibar, Billabona, Portugalete, Bergara, Zornotza, Leioa, Ondarroa and Durango.

Declaring with their backs to the lighting in order to avoid being recognized, under poor technical conditions, the agents showed evidence assessments and photographic reports with the material damage caused in the Magistrates’ Courts. They also showed data referring to graffiti or banners appearing in the proximity of the crime scenes and about the repercussions in press news with the claims made by the attackers about their reason for acting that way. All of them were in reference to the situation of Basque political prisoners, of specific repressive situations or to the repressive role carried out by the judicial power.

In this way, the accusations pretended to demonstrate the linking of the prosecuted with these attacks, if not in a direct form, but having pointed out or criticized who afterwards suffered those attacks.

29/04/08
Session nº4
Guardias Civiles appear before the judge

Four agents from the Guardia Civil, who made the open statements after the detentions of Ibon Aranalde and Susana Atxaerandio, declared as protected witnesses of the accusation in a very brief session. Thus, they maintained that the detainees had declared that Maite Díaz de Heredia was the head of Gestoras Pro-Amnistía in Araba and that Xabin Juarista was the head of Askatasuna in Gipuzkoa –facts that the interested parties themselves recognized in the first session of the trial. The Guardias Civiles declared that the detainees, in their statements made at police headquarters, “commented” upon the finances and internal structure of the anti-repressive organizations. This way, they said that these organizations financed themselves through “raffle tickets, txoznas [stands set up at fairs], lotteries and voluntary donation boxes placed in bars.” Concerning the structure, they spoke of national, provincial, regional and local existing levels.

The Ministry of Justice and the lawyer for the AVT (Association of Terrorism Victims) attempted to discount the torture claims made on the previous day by the three Basque youths who suffered retaliation after declared as witnesses as requested by the defendants. The three Guardias Civiles, in the same fashion their colleague did the day before, said that the declarations of the detainees were made in presence of a public lawyer and that they were read their rights. No one had any procedural problems in relation to these cases. One of them confirmed that “not in this case.”

The defense lawyers did not participate in this interrogation as requested by the defendants.

28/04/08
Session nº3
Testimony by witnesses for the prosecution

The defendants’ decision to renounce to their legal defense, once the first session started, has changed around the calendar that the court had set up, reducing the number and the duration of the sessions.

When the witnesses were called to testify, three Basque citizens who supposedly would be given light to some of the accusations against the pro-amnesty movement members were called to declare. Although Susana Atxaerandio’s and Ibon Aranalde’s declarations only attempted to prove the affiliation to Gestoras-Askatasuna of Maite Díaz de Heredia and Xabin Juarista- a fact that has already been recognized publicly by both of them- the declaration of Jorge Olaiz did indeed present more relevance since he declared that while in police custody, the Gestoras spokesperson Josu Beaumont had provided him with a letter that would have put him in touch with ETA. Olaiz declared that after his police custody in December 2001, two months after the detention of 14 Gestoras members, the Guardia Civil had forced him under torture to make statements against Josu Beaumont. Once in front of the judge, Olaiz denied his previous declaration as he denounced the treatment he had suffered. Now as a witness he confirmed that those declarations “had not been voluntary but previously prepared at the police station”.

The prosecutor, Carlos Bautista, and the lawyer for the AVT (Terrorism Victims’ Association) tried to discredit his statement saying that no trial has been held for the police agents who participated in his previous testimony.

The three witnesses declared they had suffered torture during interrogations. Atxaerandio mentioned “beatings, humiliation and sexual abuse”. Aranalde said that in the time of his declaration he was “psychologically annulled” in reference to the investigation of these facts. Olaiz said that he had reported having suffered torture but that “nobody asked him to follow up with it”.

The session finished with the declaration of the Guardia Civil who took Olaiz’s declaration to reassure that Olaiz’s statements had been “prepared in a spontaneous manner”. After this slip on the official’s part, the president of the court asked him to correct his statement, after which, realizing his mistake, he reassured the court that the declarations of Jorge Olaiz in the police headquarters had been “voluntary” and that they had never had “procedural problems concerning these facts”.

21/04/08
Session nº1 and 2
The defendants reject the exercise of the juridical defence
(Session nº1 en français)

On April 21st the hearing in the proceeding against the members of Gestoras pro Amnistía – Askatasuna started in front of the Spanish National Court followed under the accusation of armed organisation. One after the other, the 27 activists of the groups of the state repression and the solidarity with the victims of its violence explained the reasons of their activity, and the fields where it was developed: from the participation in public press conferences and peaceful demonstration to the fund rising to face the expenses of the penitentiary policy, the public discussion or cooperation with other political or social agents or the juridical assistance to Basque citizens. Thus, they remarked the campaigns to denounce the dispersal policy of Basque prisoners and the impact in their families, the dreadful living conditions in the jails, the torture, the high militarization of the Basque territory, the dirty war, the police brutality etcetera.

Moreover, the defendants manifested their personal motivations to participate in this movement: the impact of the repression in their lives or those of their relatives, or the awareness because of repressive facts of exceptional seriousness.

After that, one by one considered that the “sentence was already written” and that “the hearing is a mere performance of a punishment already decided” or that it is “simply a farce”, in point of view of some of them. That is why and on the experience of previous trials, confirming the lack of procedural guaranties and to develop a trial in juridical terms; the defendants rejected the exercise of the juridical defence. In a text sent to the public opinion and signed by all the people under trial, they explained that they won’t assume a “defence of the civil and political rights that belong to us, because they are not under negotiation or public control. We do not recognize this exceptional Court any legitimacy to do that”.

Their lawyers explained to the Court that they would reject also the participation in the hearing of the 250 proposed witnesses, in exception of a dozen of them, all direct victims of repression or relatives of victims of the violence of the Spanish state.

After the statements the president of the Court, Teresa Palacios, addressed the defendants to answer the accusation of political orientation and lack of independence of the Court, stating that “we are not prosecuting the National Court, contrary to what has been stated. We do not prosecute ideologies, but crimes”.