- Next July, the trial against them will begin at the Spanish National Court. The Public Prosecutor's Office is calling for sentences of between 7 and 19 years in prison for those accused in summary 13/13, accused of collaboration or integration with ETA. The detainees were arrested in 2010. The defendants have argued that the trial is out of time and that it is time to close the wounds to the defendants.
Arantza Zulueta, Jon Enparantza, Naia Zuriarrain, Julen Zelarain, Iker Sarriegi, Saioa Agirre, Nerea Redondo and Juan Mari Jauregi are the Basques and Basques to be tried by the Supreme National Court. It was they who made the macro-trial known at a press conference in Bilbao. The trial will begin on 12 July and in total the Office of the Prosecutor asks for 77 years in prison for the defendants, with personal petitions between 7 and 19 years in prison. Saioa Agirre, Nerea Redondo and Juan Mari Jauregi have been sentenced to 7 years in prison for a crime of cooperation with ETA, according to the Supreme Court. The petition against Naia Zuriarrain and Julen Zelarain is 11 years for integration. The Prosecutor’s Office accuses Iker Sarriegi of integration and asks him for 10 years in prison. The Office of the Prosecutor charges Jon Enparantza and Arantza Zulueta for integration in the direction of training. Enparantza has a 12-year petition. Arantza Zulueta is also charged with the crimes of stockpiling weapons and explosives, and its counterpart is the greatest demand for punishment: 19 years.
Out of time
The defendants have denounced that the trial is “out of time and place” and have claimed that, instead of opening new wounds, it is time to close those that are still open: "It's time for prisoners to go home. It is high time that the consequences of the conflict were clarified and that the wounds were properly closed. It is time to go to the root of the political conflict. We are at a stage of opening up new opportunities to Basque society, to freedom, to democracy, to reach the framework of democratic coexistence that Basque society needs”
Operation 2010
The eight defendants worked in defence of the rights of Basque political prisoners when, together with five others, they were arrested and detained. The arrests occurred in 2010, during a raid ordered by Fernando Grande Marlaska. "Our houses and offices were turned upside down, we were searched and communicated, we were interrogated for five days and some of us suffered severe torture," he said. They have recalled that at that time the Abertzale left was "laying the foundations for building a new political scenario without armed confrontation" and "always seeking the disappearance of all expressions of violence in the Basque Country". The trial will be held 11 years later, 10 years after the final cessation of the armed struggle by ETA. "The 'sound of the sword' of the time, the current 'sound of the toga'", sums up the situation.