The 'ETA stamps' delivered by France in 2018 allow eight convictions after the police analysis

The Memorial Center collects in its annual balance that five ETA members returned voluntarily when their legal claims were prescribed

MADRID, 15 Ago. (EUROPA PRESS) -

The documentation known as the 'ETA stamps' that France handed over to the Spanish authorities in 2018 has so far served as the evidentiary basis for eight convictions in the National Court, on four occasions thanks to the analysis of the Civil Guard and as many other cases. for the work of the specialists of the National Police.

This is stated in the 'Balance of terrorism in Spain 2022' published in the July Notebooks of the Memorial Center for the Victims of Terrorism, consulted by Europa Press, which reviews the work of the Spanish Security Forces after the end of the attacks , especially about the unsolved murders.

In this sense, the balance stops at the evidentiary basis of the 'ETA stamps' delivered by France in 2018 with documentation intervened to ETA since 1999. The destination of the material was the Memorial Center itself, although the transfer was made by virtue of a rogatory letter with legal guarantees to preserve its value before the courts.

The Minister of the Interior, Fernando Grande-Marlaska, highlights in the prologue to the balance that the security forces and the justice system continue to work to "establish the criminal responsibilities that could correspond to ETA leaders", and recalls that in 2022 nine were convicted for this reason.

The Memorial Center, directed by Florencio Domínguez, reviews the cases in which the 'ETA stamps' have contributed to obtaining convictions, beginning with the murder of the prison official Máximo Casado in the year 2000.

Specifically, a self-critical letter or 'kantada' by ETA member Iñigo Guridi Lasa intervened in France "contributed decisively" to the condemnation of the members of the 'Totto commando' Asier Arzalluz Goñi, Aitor Aguirrebarrena Beldarrain and Iñigo Guridi, as material authors , 33 years in prison, as well as Javier García Gaztelu, 'Txapote', as inducer.

The second sentence affects the historic ETA leader Soledad Iparraguirre, 'Anboto', as the author of a crime against the Crown and deposit of weapons of war. The key was a document seized in Salies-de-Béarn (France) that proved her link to the ETA leadership.

The 'ETA stamps' allowed Iñigo Gudiri to be sentenced again, to 51 years in prison, for the attack against a civil guard in Navarra in 2000, while in the case of José Carlos Apeztegia, a letter from him proposing carry out attacks against prison officers.

The fifth sentence is related to the attack against the Palace of Justice of Gijón and a pharmacy in 1996. As a result of a self-criticism written in 2011 by Iratxe Sorzabal, this member of ETA was sentenced to 24 years and six months as the author of two crimes of terrorist havoc.

Another 'kantada' led to the sentence of Juan Luis Rubenach Roig to more than a thousand years for the car bomb attack against a person in charge of the Scientific Police in 2001. For his part, Asier Eceiza Ayerra was sentenced to 19 years as an accomplice of the attack against the socialist councilor Juan Priede, again thanks to the self-critical writings of other terrorists.

The eighth and last sentence is that of the lawyer Arantza Zulueta, in this case thanks to the intelligence analysis of documents seized in the French country that allowed her to be sentenced to four years for a crime of integration into a terrorist organization, as well as for depositing weapons and explosives to another three years and six months.

The balance of the Memorial Center also reviews other aspects after the end of ETA such as the three zulos that were intervened in 2022, one of them in France, or the voluntary return of five who fled from Justice after spending many years outside the reach of the courts Spanish people.

This is Nekane Txapartegi, who returned from Switzerland a week after the 15-year legal claim for falsification of an official document was rendered null and void, being released after appearing at the National Court awaiting trial.

By expiring his accusation as a member of the 'Nafarroa commando', Lázaro Galarza Larrayoz returned from Mexico, ending the search and capture order that had been issued against him since 1992. He then returned to the Central American country, where he died of an accident at work.

Emilio Martínez de Marigorta and Félix Manzanos Martínez, with "a dense history of terrorist activities in the 1970s and 1980s", also returned to Spain, in their case from Cape Verde. They arrived here from Algeria in 1989 and stayed for more than 30 years, when the local authorities refused to hand them over.

Iñaki Rodríguez Muñoa arrived in Cape Verde in 1986, who returned to Spain last year. This member of the political-military branch fled to Cuba by boat, where he had remained until his voluntary return.