The APIF believes that the position of the Prosecutor's Office should be the one that avoids impunity for crimes such as that of Miguel Ángel Blanco

MADRID, 24 Jul. (EUROPA PRESS) -

The Independent Professional Association of Prosecutors (APIF) considers that the position of the Prosecutor's Office should be the one that avoids impunity for crimes such as that of Miguel Ángel Blanco.

"The position of the Prosecutor's Office must be to explore the reasonable interpretation of the laws that tends to avoid impunity for very serious crimes," the association said on Sunday.

The statement is published after the judicial declaration last Thursday of the former heads of ETA Miguel Albisu Iriarte, alias 'Mikel Antza', and María Soledad Iparraguirre, 'Anboto', attended by a different prosecutor than the one who usually handles the 'case by Miguel Ángel Blanco.

In that sense, the Public Prosecutor's Office of the National High Court (AN) denied this Saturday having received "guidelines", "less of a political nature", to assess the possible prescription for some former ETA chiefs in the framework of the investigation that seeks to determine their involvement in the kidnapping and murder in 1997 of the young PP councilor in Ermua Miguel Ángel Blanco.

The APIF then wants to denounce "the misuse and contrary to the professional rights of prosecutors that the hierarchy of the Prosecutor's Office is making of the guarantee mechanisms that are held internally for the formation of the institution's criteria."

The association recalls that article 25.2 of the Organic Statute of the Public Prosecutor's Office (EOMF) states that "the members of the Public Prosecutor's Office will inform the State Attorney General of the facts related to his mission that, due to their importance or transcendence, he should know. The orders are carried out through the hierarchical superior, unless the urgency of the case advises doing so directly, in which case further knowledge will be given to it".

In this way, it considers that it follows that the communication of the event is directed to the attorney general, not to a different prosecutor, since the communication comes from the prosecutor in charge of the case: his hierarchical superior is the vehicle for it. Therefore, if clarifications need to be made, "the person handling the matter must be heard."

Likewise, the communication does not imply the expression of doubts or the expectation of a legal position to follow: if the Attorney General of the State believes that he must intervene, he must do so formally. The APIF has also pointed out that this legal system of communications "cannot be relaxed to force a prosecutor to adopt a legal position contrary to her opinion."

Finally, the association believes that it can also be deduced from this article that the chief prosecutor of the Technical Secretariat does not have, except by express delegation, any hierarchical authority over any prosecutor in Spain except those of his immediate management, "but surprisingly he appears in the last times in any situation of internal debate in the Prosecutor's Office".

Tax sources indicate that the AN Prosecutor's Office has always maintained the same criteria with respect to these reopened cases to corner the executive committees or zubas of ETA, which is to assess the prescription when the relevant periods have elapsed since the commission of the crime, unless they were interrupted by an imputation.

The same sources emphasize that this has been the criterion applied to the 'Miguel Angel case', where the private prosecution of Dignity and Justice (DyJ) has put on the table a new doctrine that leads to the conclusion that the crimes have not prescribed.

As Europa Press has learned, the prosecutor González Mota exposed to his colleagues the possibility of exploring other ways that would allow the prescription to be avoided, although he did not have their support, so since he was the one who deviated from the joint criteria, he asked to be relieved of the case and so it was done, with what has been left out of it.

Despite everything, the aforementioned sources emphasize that, given the type of procedure in which we find ourselves, it is possible to reopen to investigate in depth. It will be once the investigations are exhausted, in the intermediate phase, when the issue of prescription must be resolved.