The decision is based on the decision of the European Court of Human Rights last January in the case of the prisoner Xabier Atristrain. The Second Section of the Spanish National Hearing has now dealt with the issue of Churches and, true to the case law of Strasbourg, has argued that the Civil Guard did not give sufficient reasons to deny Chouzas the trustworthy lawyer during the period of incommunicado detention.

In this trial, Chouzas was charged with the murder of a Civil Guard in Bilbao in 1991, but the magistrates have been acquitted leaving the prisoner ' s statement incommunicado without effect. They have only taken into account the prisoner ' s statements before the judge.

Last March the National High Court again did the same with the prisoner Gorka Palacios and acquitted for another murder, as the testimonies received against him were also incommunicado.

And here is the shadow of torture, because these resolutions do not say that the statements received by the security forces were made under torture, but they say that the invulpates did so under torture, and the Strasbourg court and now the National Court have overturned those statements.

Henceforth, therefore, it appears that the National Court is going to issue resolutions along the same lines. Hundreds of prisoners were sentenced during decades of Basque conflict to imprisonment for many years with statements subject to torture, and it is now clear how the case law in Strasbourg will affect this past, especially those prisoners who are still in prison as a result of statements in isolation.